Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/16

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PREFACE

Many extracts from the newspapers themselves have been given since the newspaper is both consciously and unconsciously its own best record of its aimsand its methods of attaining them. Since it is essential to the purpose of the book to consider testimony, to weigh evidence, and to arrive at decisions, it is necessary to hear the evidence given by the press itself. A large number of the citations have been taken from the New York City papers, in part for reasons of convenience, and in part because news-collecting associations have standardized news, and advertising clubs and fashion have in a measure standardized advertisements. Illustrative newspapers, however, from practically every state in the Union, and many from other countries, have been examined, and it is thus hoped that no undue basis will be found for the charge of generalizing from insufficient data.

A companion volume now in press is entitled The Newspaper and Authority. This considers the advantages and the limitations of the press considered with reference to external control. The questions of regulation of the press, all forms of censorship of the press, freedom of the press, libel laws, press bureaus, press publicity, and press propaganda suggest conditions where the press is limited by an authority outside of itself. This exoteric side of the press and all its relations to external authority must be examined by the historian as well as the limitations arising from conditions within the press itself.

My obligations to others seem out of all proportion to the results visible in the book. They include a group of colleagues and friends, V. Barbour, L. F. Brown, E. Ellery, I. C. Thallon, and C. M. Thompson, all of whom have read the manuscript wholly or in part, and have at all times lent a listening ear as each new interest in the subject has developed. A group of friends, M. L. Berkemeier, R. L. Lowrie, H. Rottschaefer, and E. M. Rushmore, have given untiring help in the collection of material. Friends have sent to the Vassar College Library special copies of newspapers from all over the world; they can not all be named individually, but special gratitude goes to K. B. Béziat for newspapers from France covering a wide range of in terests and localities during 1914–1915; to Charles Upson Clark for copies of Italian papers during the war; to Burges Johnson for