Contents -Volume INDEX -AUTHOR INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

Dependent Journalism

By Horace Greeley (1811–1872)

YOU know my inveterate conviction that a journal that cannot support itself can support nothing else that is good: that all journals that need bolstering ought to die, and so strengthen those that have inherent vitality; that Washington City is the great mistake of our country, and in good part because it seems to require a press essentially parasitical, or dependent on some sort of government or partisan subsidy. If every journal that does not pay from its legitimate income were annihilated to-morrow, I feel sure that it would be a blessed thing for the country, as it would restore to live journals patronage that they are now unfairly deprived of. These are very old conclusions. I cannot change them; but I will endeavor not to bring them to bear invidiously on you.