eceive a salary of $100,000 a year.

Oddly enough, the American people freely criticise their newspapers. One
of the commonest charges is that their editors write with great haste
and little accurate information. But, Herr Grundschnitt argued, it is
unfair to insist that newspapers shall be both forceful and accurate.
It is true that the editors who supply the American people with their
opinions think fast and write fast, but it is absurd to maintain that as
a class they are unreasonably set in their own beliefs. Editors, as a
matter of fact, change their opinions every little while. In such cases
they usually have no difficulty in proving that, while their present
views are right, their previous views were also right. This makes for
consistency. Nor is there any reason for maintaining, as is often done,
that editors are restive under criticism. The professor declared that
there are very few newspapers in the United States that will refuse to
print a letter from any one who believes that the paper in question is
the only one in town with courage and honesty enough to tell the truth
and that it is the best newspaper in the country at the price.

As for the old-fashioned critics who maintain that not even the best
newspaper tells more than half the truth, my informant pointed out that
every town and village in the United States has at least two daily
publications. The conscientious reader who buys both is thus saved from
error.

When I rose to say good-night the professor accompanied me to the door,
and would not let me go till he had pronounced a final eulogy on the
press in general, and the American newspaper in particular. He
expatiated on its omnipresence. The printed sheet is with a man when he
wakes in the morning, and when he falls asleep at night, and when he is
at the breakfast table with his wife. The newspaper breaks up families
and reunites other families, though it usually misspells their names. It
chastises the rascal, and worries the honest man. It can make a
reputation in a day, and destroy a reputation in ten minutes, sending
its owner into the grave or upon the vaudeville stage. It teaches
Presidents how to rule, women how to win husbands, the Church how to
save souls, and middle-aged gentlemen how to reduce weight by exercising
ten minutes every day. It knows nearly everything and guesses at the
rest. It will say almost anything and publish the rest at advertising
rates. Without it, democratic governm