any man's choice of a career; but
this we may say,--that the man who wins the first place in the
journalism of a free country must concentrate all his powers upon that
one work, and, as an editor, owe no allegiance to party. He must stand
above all parties, and serve all parties, by spreading before the
public that full and exact information upon which sound legislation is
based.

During the present (1865-6) session of Congress we have had daily
illustration of this truth. The great question has been, What is the
condition of the Southern States and the feeling of the Southern
people? All the New York morning papers have expended money and labor,
each according to its means and enterprise, in getting information
from the South. This was well. But every one of these papers has had
some party or personal bias, which has given it a powerful interest to
make out a case. The World and News excluded everything which tended
to show the South dissatisfied and disloyal. The Tribune, on the other
hand, diligently sought testimony of that nature. The Times, also,
being fully committed to a certain theory of reconstruction, naturally
gave prominence to every fact which supported that theory, and was
inclined to suppress information of the opposite tendency. The
consequence was, that an inhabitant of the city of New York who simply
desired to know the truth was compelled to keep an eye upon four or
five papers, lest something material should escape him. This is
pitiful. This is utterly beneath the journalism of 1866. The final
pre-eminent newspaper of America will soar far above such needless
limitations as these, and present the truth in _all_ its aspects,
regardless of its effects upon theories, parties, factions, and
Presidential campaigns.

Presidential campaigns,--that is the real secret. The editors of most
of these papers have selected their candidate for 1868; and, having
done that, can no more help conducting their journals with a view to
the success of that candidate, than the needle of a compass can help
pointing awry when there is a magnet hidden in the binnacle. Here,
again, we have no right to censure or complain. Yet we cannot help
marvelling at the hallucination which can induce able men to prefer
the brief and illusory honors of political station to the substantial
and lasting power within the grasp of the successful journalist. He,
if any one,--he more than any one else,--is the master in a free
country. Have w