only by altering or distorting those facts, that a journalist can contribute to the support of his own views.”[1]
Undoubtedly the weight attached to the opinions of the editor has at times taken on new and greater importance by reason of the offices and honors conferred upon him. Delane somewhat quickly acquired a reputation for omniscience, and especially after announcing in The Times the abolition of the corn laws, “he acquired the reputation which he never afterwards lost of being the best informed man in England.”[2] The opinions expressed by Delane in regard to the Civil War in America were apparently accepted without question by the readers of The Times. This readiness to accept his views, especially on a foreign situation, was undoubtedly due to the confidence felt in him because of his high social position, and the belief that this gave him authentic sources of information not available to others. But the disadvantage of omniscience is that it leads to over-confidence and an assumption of infallibility of judgment that does not always stand the test of time. In the case of Delane many of his intelligent contemporaries did not accept his judgment in regard to the Civil War. Leslie Stephen wrote with vehemence in an elaborate pamphlet: “My complaint against the Times is that its total ignorance of the quarrel and the presumption with which it pronounced upon its merits, led to its pouring out a ceaseless flood of scurrilous abuse, couched , indeed , in decent language, but as essentially insulting as the brutal vulgarities of the New York Herald. No American . . . could fail to be wounded , and, so far as he took the voice of the Times for the voice of England, to be irritated against England."[3]
How unerringly Leslie Stephen divined the effect of the attitude of Delane is seen in a letter of Lowell's to Leslie Stephen dated April 10, 1866, which he says “ is the first one I have sent across the Atlantic since our war began ." . . . " I confess I have had an almost invincible repugnance to writing again to England. I share with the great body of my countrymen in a bitterness (half resentment and half regret) which I can not yet get
