cent power than when it disappoints this malignant expectation and shows the country that, while loyal to a party and its policy, it is more loyal to honor and patriotism. This is the independence of the press. It is not non-partisanship nor impotent neutrality. It is not the free lance of an Italian bravo or soldier of fortune at the disposal of the master who pays the best. It is not the unprincipled in difference which cries to-day “good Lord” and to-morrow “good devil” as the Lord or the devil seems to be prevailing. Nor is it a daily guess how the wind is going to blow, and a dexterous conformity to what it believes to be public opinion. No paper and no man who fears to be in the minority has the power to create a majority. It is the unquailing advocacy of its own principles when it stands alone, and honorable support when a party proclaims them; it is scorn of falsehood and baseness and bribery in sustaining them; it is manly justice to opponents and unsparing exposure of offenders and offenses which, disgracing the party, tend to weaken and destroy it; it is austere allegiance to high ideals of public virtue and perfect reliance upon the ultimate justice of the people—it is all this which makes an independent press the greatest power in Christendom.
And as he taught the sanctity of conscience as against party, so he taught the sanctity of conscience as against the majority.
In a Republic [he said in an address on the leadership of educated men], as the majority must control action, the majority constantly tends to usurp control of opinion. Its decree is accepted as the standard of right and wrong. To differ is grotesque and eccentric. To protest is preposterous. To defy is incendiary and revolutionary. But just here interposes educated intelligence and asserts the worth of self-reliance and the power of the individual conscience. And, further, it is educated citizenship which, while defining the rightful limitation of the power of the majority, is most loyal to its legitimate authority, and foremost always in
