William Lloyd Garrison | Page 8

nor the threats of the
disappointed, nor the influence of power, shall ever awe one single
opinion into silence. Honest and fair discussion it will court; and its
columns will be open to all temperate and intelligent communications
emanating from whatever political source. In fine we will say with
Cicero: 'Reason shall prevail with him more than popular opinion.'
They who like this avowal may extend their encouragement; and if any
feel dissatisfied with it, they must act accordingly. The publisher
cannot condescend to solicit their support." This was admirable enough
in its way, but it was poor journalism some will say. And without doubt
when judged by the common commercial standard it was poor
journalism. In this view it is a remarkable production, but in another
aspect it is still more remarkable in that it took with absolute accuracy
the measure of the man. As a mental likeness it is simply perfect. At no
time during his later life did the picture cease to be an exact moral
representation of his character. It seems quite unnecessary, therefore, to

record that he proceeded immediately to demonstrate that it was no
high sounding and insincere declaration. For in the second number, he
mentions with that singular serenity, which ever distinguished him on
such occasions, the discontinuance of the paper on account of matter
contained in the first issue, by ten indignant subscribers.
"Nevertheless," he adds, "our happiness at the loss of such subscribers
is not a whit abated. We beg no man's patronage, and shall ever erase
with the same cheerfulness that we insert the name of any individual....
Personal or political offence we shall studiously avoid--truth never."
Here was plainly a wholly new species of the genus homo in the
editorial seat. What, expect to make a newspaper pay and not beg for
patronage? Why the very idea was enough to make newspaperdom go
to pieces with laughter. Begging for patronage, howling for subscribers,
cringing, crawling, changing color like the chameleon, howling for
Barabbas or bellowing against Jesus, all these things must your
newspaper do to prosper. On them verily hang the whole law and all
the profits of modern journalism. This is what the devil of competition
was doing in that world when William Lloyd Garrison entered it. It
took him up into an exceedingly high mountain, we may be certain, and
offered him wealth, position, and power, if he would do what all others
were doing. And he would not. He went on editing and publishing his
paper for six months regardful only of what his reason
approved--regardless always of the disapproval of others. Not once did
he palter with his convictions or juggle with his self-respect for the
sake of pelf or applause. His human horizon was contracted, to be sure.
It could hardly be otherwise in one so young. His world was his
country, and patriotism imposed limits upon his affections. "Our
country, our whole country, and nothing but our country," was the
ardent motto of the Free Press. The love of family comes, in the order
of growth, before the love of country; and the love of country precedes
the love of all mankind. "First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn
in the ear," is the great law of love in the soul as of corn in the soil.
Besides this contraction of the affections, there was also manifest in his
first journalistic venture a deficiency in the organ of vision, a failure to
see into things and their relations. What he saw he reported faithfully,
suppressing nothing, adding nothing. But the objects which passed
across the disk of his editoral intelligence were confined almost entirely

to the surface of things, to the superficies of national life. He had not
the ken at twenty to penetrate beneath the happenings of current politics.
Of the existence of slavery as a supreme reality, we do not think that he
then had the faintest suspicion. No shadow of its tremendous influence
as a political power seemed to have arrested for a brief instant his
attention. He could copy into his paper this atrocious sentiment which
Edward Everett delivered in Congress, without the slightest comment
or allusion. "Sir, I am no soldier. My habits and education are very
unmilitary, but there is no cause in which I would sooner buckle a
knapsack on my back, and put a musket on my shoulder than that of
putting down a servile insurrection at the South." The reason is plain
enough. Slavery was a terra incognito to him then, a book of which he
had not learned the ABC. Mr. Everett's language made no impression
on him, because he had not the key to interpret its significance. What
he saw, that he set down for his readers, without fear or favor.