the "snappy," scrappy, dialogue style of writing affected by many short-story writers,[1] but the reaction against it is coming and to-day the leading editorials in our leading papers have somewhat the character of the best magazine articles. A general survey of an important question, or an exhaustive comment on a single phase of a subject prominently in the public eye may cover the first three columns of a great daily, while in the care taken in the presentation of the subject it may vie with all that is best in literature.
At one time the "sixth column" and the "third leader" were exceptional and they were presumably the work of the regular staff, but to-day the editor calls upon a wide range of occasional editorial contributors with expert knowledge in many fields and this in part explains the broadening of the editorial page both in its interests and in its method of treating them . Modern editorials have been reprinted, as those from the London Times,—"third leaders" that "are meant to turn the reader from affairs and interests of the moment to a consideration 'of man, of nature, and of human life' in their larger, more permanent aspect. In one or another form they represent the daily demand and supply of material for thought. … They are journalism; but in them journalism is extending itself towards, is even becoming, literature."[2] The examination of a large number of editorials leads to the conclusion that never has there been so large a number of editorial columns so well written as can be found to-day.
An evidence of the permanent value of the editorial of to-day in contrast with the elusive, vague, and therefore temporary reflections of the early day, is seen in the growing tendency to collect them into book form. Charles T. Congdon was on the New York Tribune from 1857 to 1863 and his "editorials were so good that they received the unusual honor of republication in a book." [3] What was considered unusual in 1869 has now become the usual. A library might be collected of volumes made up of
- ↑ F. N. Scott gave timely warning that "our future managing editors will do well to set it down in their Tables that 'Punch,' 'Human Interest,' and 'Heart-Throbs' are not, in modern journalism, the 'Whole Thing'."—The Nation, July 25, 1917, 105: 91.
- ↑ J. W. Mackail, Modern Essays, p. x.
- ↑ W. H. Rideing, Many Celebrities and a few Others, p. 49. Charles T. Congdon, Tribune Essays, New York, 1869.
