n life.

"The power of the press," as something to be feared or admired, is a
favorite theme of dinner-table orators and clergymen. One would think it
was some compactly wielded energy, like that of an organized religious
order, with a possible danger in it to the public welfare. Discrimination
is not made between the power of the printed word--which is
limitless--and the influence that a newspaper, as such, exerts. The power
of the press is in its facility for making public opinions and events. I
should say it is a medium of force rather than force itself. I confess
that I am oftener impressed with the powerlessness of the press than
otherwise, its slight influence in bringing about any reform, or in
inducing the public to do what is for its own good and what it is
disinclined to do. Talk about the power of the press, say, in a
legislature, when once the members are suspicious that somebody is trying
to influence them, and see how the press will retire, with what grace it
can, before an invincible and virtuous lobby. The fear of the combination
of the press for any improper purpose, or long for any proper purpose, is
chimerical. Whomever the newspapers agree with, they do not agree with
each other. The public itself never takes so many conflicting views of
any topic or event as the ingenious rival journals are certain to
discover. It is impossible, in their nature, for them to combine. I
should as soon expect agreement among doctors in their empirical
profession. And there is scarcely ever a cause, or an opinion, or a man,
that does not get somewhere in the press a hearer and a defender. We will
drop the subject with one remark for the benefit of whom it may concern.
With all its faults, I believe the moral tone of the American newspaper
is higher, as a rule, than that of the community in which it is
published.

CERTAIN DIVERSITIES OF AMERICAN LIFE

By Charles Dudley Warner

This is a very interesting age. Within the memory of men not yet come to
middle life the time of the trotting horse has been reduced from two
minutes forty seconds to two minutes eight and a quarter seconds. During
the past fifteen years a universal and wholesome pastime of boys has been
developed into a great national industry, thoroughly organized and almost
altogether relegated to professional hands, no longer the exercise of the
million but a spectacle for the million, and a game which rivals the
Stock Exchange as a means of winning m