manner of the food it eats. Sometimes a false growth is made, and then it is the business of the journalist to use corrective measures.
For many years, it was the prevailing opinion in this country that a man had a perfect right to own men and women, and to deal in them as marketable property. Had there not been among those who were in the minority brave, wise, and good men to protest against such an evil, slavery might have remained until to-day. This minority was weak at first, but possessing the elements of right, it possessed also the elements of power. And so with all moral reforms; they are brought about finally in answer to a public demand; but a demand upon the public had first to be made, in order to bring it into the right way of thinking, and to induce it to act according to duty. While we should hesitate to make any one agency responsible for the course that public opinion finally takes, we venture the assertion that no agency is so fruitful in this direction as that of the public Press.
There was a time when the public speaker had almost sole charge of this business. But the printer's ink has largely taken his place; that is, it multiplies his words a thousand fold. Give us wise, judicious, reliable and high-toned newspapers, and we are most likely to have a public opinion that is safe, and worthy to be consulted.
But "Our Work as Journalists," as we take it, has special reference to colored journalists. We have purposely first called attention to those general rules which govern journalism, because they are applicable to all. This is a comparatively new field for colored men, and their work is specially important because it is two-fold. Besides representing the public in a general way, as we have already remarked, they stand in a particular sense for their people. It is folly for any one to shut his eyes to the fact, that the war for human rights in this country is not closed. When the agitation for
