questions that the positive statements of President Cleveland regarding money, regarding the tariff, have had great influence. Nobody questions that the positive statements of McKinley on the tariff have had great influence; and doubtless our political leaders might well increase their influence if they were bold enough to speak, or if circumstances forced them to speak more positively.
Many of our great newspapers have a personal following of readers whose views are shaped by the opinions expressed in the editorial columns; but probably since Horace Greeley's day there has been no paper that has exerted the direct influence over its readers that do the great papers of England and Germany.
One chief reason, perhaps, of the comparatively small influence of our press is that the people know the fact that the papers are run from motives of personal profits, and that the policy of the paper is largely determined by the amount to which its opinions will affect its sales and advertising. Often editors with positive opinions are forbidden by the proprietors to express them, because such expression might affect the sales of the paper; and still more often it is true that a paper is compelled to modify its statements for fear that the influence on public opinion might affect unfavorably some outside business in which the proprietor of the paper is engaged. Philadelphia editors have called attention to the fact that Philadelphia papers did not join in the attack on Postmaster General Wanamaker. Wanamaker is a good advertiser. It is stated on trustworthy authority that the subscription list of a well-known republican weekly newspaper dropped almost immediately from 12,000 to 8,000 when in 1876 that paper intimated that possibly Tilden was rightfully elected. Another prominent partisan daily lost a profit currently reported at $100,000 a year upon becoming independent in politics. With so shifting a constituency, one can hardly expect an editor to make very bold attempts to guide public opinion. The facts are useful to show the part played by prejudice and habit. And yet the editor may at least partly justify, on moral grounds, his position for trying to hold his constituency. One cannot guide the opinions of
