- 518 .
with its head in the sand . The conventional advice to " shop at home" carries no more and no less weight than do other conventions and is seldom misunderstood . The authoritative ness of the press is not necessarily impeached by reason of its mutually contradictory parts. The newspaper , like the individual, is open to the charge of
generalizing from insufficient data . On Thanksgiving Day, 1915 , approximately twelve hundred clergymen preached in Greater
New York. A leading New York paper gave two columns to extracts from eleven sermons out of the twelve hundred preached. Of the eleven quoted , three sermons seemed to urge some form of military preparation ; the others were silent or definitely opposed to the plan . Yet the headlines of this paper read , “ Pre paredness from Many Pulpits. Thanksgiving Sermons Justify War for Defense of American Liberty and Ideals.” 19 Pernicious as is the oral general statement of an individual, the printed
general statement of the press is infinitely more destructive of the truth. Yet in both the private individual and the individual speaking through the press it is an evidence of mental immaturity and untrained mind rather than an illustration of deliberate
falsehood. A serious limitation on the usefulness of the press to the historian is found in its failure to give continuous news; it gives full information on any subject only in times of crises. This is
evident to any onemaking a collection of clippings on any current question. Many links are always lacking in the chain of evidence and these must be supplied from other sources. Continuity of narration is found in the newspaper through the letters of corre spondents permanently attached to national capitals or assigned
to report at length on important, prolonged questions, but these letters can not always be considered news. Continuity is found in the serial advertisements that are often complete and con tinuous; they are numbered with each appearance and indicate when the next advertisement in the series may be expected. But
apart from these two sources, continuity ofmaterial is not found in the press . 19 “ The Falsification of the News,” The Independent, December 13, 1915,
