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CHAPTER VI.
OF THE RELATION BETWEEN PUBLIC ASSOCIATIONS AND NEWSPAPERS.
When men are no longer united among themselves by firm and
lasting ties, it is impossible to obtain the co-operation of any great
number of them, unless you can persuade every man whose concurrence
you require that his private interest obliges him voluntarily
to unite his exertions to the exertions of all the rest. This can only
be habitually and conveniently effected by means of a newspaper;
nothing but a newspaper can drop the same thought into a thousand
minds at the same moment. A newspaper is an adviser who
does not require to be sought, but who comes of his own accord,
and talks to you briefly every day of the common weal, without
distracting you from your private affairs.
Newspapers therefore become more necessary in proportion as men become more equal, and individualism more to be feared. To suppose that they only serve to protect freedom would be to diminish their importance: they maintain civilization. I shall not deny that in democratic countries newspapers frequently lead the citizens to launch together in very ill-digested schemes; but if there were no newspapers there would be no common activity. The evil which they produce is therefore much less than that which they cure.
The effect of a newspaper is not only to suggest the same purpose to a great number of persons, but also to furnish means for executing in common the designs which they may have singly conceived. The principal citizens who inhabit an aristocratic country discern each other from afar; and if they wish to unite their forces, they move toward each other, drawing a multitude of men after them. It frequently happens, on the contrary, in democratic countries, that a great number of men who wish or who want to combine cannot accomplish it, because as they are very