Our
Benevolent Feudalism.
"'Every age,' writes
Professor Sumner, 'is befooled by the notions which are in fashion
in it. Our age is befooled by 'democracy.''"1a*
"It was a savage, and in some respects extravagant, picture
of the function of the hired newspaper worker which a
brilliant journalist . . . gave to the world a few years ago:--
'There is no such thing in America as an independent press,
unless it is out in the country towns. I am paid for keeping
honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Other
editors are paid similar salaries for doing similar things. If I
should allow honest opinions to be printed in one issue of my
paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation, like Othello's,
would be gone. The man who would be so foolish as to write honest
opinions would be out on the street hunting for another job. The
business of a New York journalist is to distort the truth, lie
outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon,
and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread, or for
about the same thing, his salary. We are the tools of vassals of
the rich men behind the scenes. We are jumping-jacks. They pull
the strings, and we dance. Our time, our talents, our lives,
our possibilities, are all the property of other men. We are
intellectual prostitutes.'"1b*
GNOSTICS
HEGEL
HITLER
GINGRICH
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*
Original spelling retained.
1 William James Ghent.
Our Benevolent Feudalism. New York,
NY: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 1902.
a Chapter VII: Our Moulders of Opinion, at 133.
b Ibid., at 146.
MK-BOOKS-GHENT-20030324
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