in the necessarily limited time obtainable between one day's
publication and the next. In spite of all precautions, untruths are unintentionally given circulation from time to time. Until some such law as the proposed Vermont statute is enacted, the victimized editor or publisher has no recourse or redress. A law
such as the Vermont Legislature suggests would rob newspaper work ofmost of its terrors. Nothing happier could be devised to
protect newspaper readers than a law which would permit newspaper correspondents and editors to bring into court men
who have deceived them by disseminating false news.” But the reporter is often cheerful under fire and is sometimes disposed to take these errors not too seriously , as is evident from
the jests the press itself collects and publishes on its own short comings. This may be illustrated by the varying accounts of an address given in Buffalo by a former governor of New York
that were collected by the Columbia , S . C ., State:
' " New York Times — Twelve Thousand Persons Hear Him Speak .'
“ New York World — 'Twenty Thousand Cheer as Sulzer Opens His Primary Campaign.' “ New York American - Fifteen thousand cheering, militant citizens . . . greeted Gov. Sulzer.'
“ New York Tribune— 'An audience of 7,500 persons.' At any
rate,we suppose all are agreed that the meeting was in Buffalo , and that Gov . Sulzer spoke.” 28 He doubtless goodnaturedly contemplates that remote time
in the future when “ the advance of the newspaper towards exact reporting will go hand in hand with the exact organization of
human affairs.” 29 That it is the sum total of these errors , greatly magnified and equally misunderstood, that has brought unwarrantable dis
credit on the press, especially the American press, seems clear. While it is not possible to accept literally the criticismsmade
on the American press by European travelers, especially by those who came during the nineteenth century, the abounding
small errors of the local reporter as read daily in the morning 28 New York Evening Post, May 29, 1913.
29 D . Wilcox, “ The American Newspaper: A Study in Social Psychology ," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, July, 1900, 16 :
