6. Chapter VI: Of The Relation Between Public Associations And
Newspapers
When men are no longer united amongst themselves by firm and
lasting ties, it is impossible to obtain the cooperation of any
great number of them, unless you can persuade every man whose
concurrence you require that this private interest obliges him
voluntarily to unite his exertions to the exertions of all the
rest. This can only be habitually and conveniently effected by
means of a newspaper; nothing but a newspaper can drop the same
thought into a thousand minds at the same moment. A newspaper is
an adviser who does not require to be sought, but who comes of
his own accord, and talks to you briefly every day of the common
weal, without distracting you from your private affairs.
Newspapers therefore become more necessary in proportion as
men become more equal, and individualism more to be feared. To
suppose that they only serve to protect freedom would be to
diminish their importance: they maintain civilization. I shall
not deny that in democratic countries newspapers frequently lead
the citizens to launch together in very ill-digested schemes; but
if there were no newspapers there would be no common activity.
The evil which they produce is therefore much less than that
which they cure.
The effect of a newspaper is not only to suggest the same
purpose to a great number of persons, but also to furnish means
for executing in common the designs which they may have singly
conceived. The principal citizens who inhabit an aristocratic
country discern each other from afar; and if they wish to unite
their forces, they move towards each other, drawing a multitude
of men after them. It frequently happens, on the contrary, in
democratic countries, that a great number of men who wish or who
want to combine cannot accomplish it, because as they are very
insignificant and lost amidst the crowd, they cannot see, and
know not where to find, one another. A newspaper then takes up
the notion or the feeling which had occurred simultaneously, but
singly, to each of them. All are then immediately guided towards
this beacon; and these wandering minds, which had long sought
each other in darkness, at length meet and unite.
The newspaper brought them together, and the newspaper is
still necessary to keep them united. In order that an
association amongst a democratic people should have any power, it
must be a numerous body. The persons of whom it is composed are
therefore scattered over a wide extent, and each of them is
detained in the place of his domicile by the narrowness of his
income, or by the small unremitting exertions by which he earns
it. Means then must be found to converse every day without seeing
each other, and to take steps in common without having met. Thus
hardly any democratic association can do without newspapers.
There is consequently a necessary connection between public
associations and newspapers: newspapers make associations, and
associations make newspapers; and if it has been correctly
advanced that associations will increase in number as the
conditions of men become more equal, it is not less certain that
the number of newspapers increases in proportion to that of
associations. Thus it is in America that we find at the same
time the greatest number of associations and of newspapers.
This connection between the number of newspapers and that of
associations leads us to the discovery of a further connection
between the state of the periodical press and the form of the
administration in a country; and shows that the number of
newspapers must diminish or increase amongst a democratic people,
in proportion as its administration is more or less centralized.
For amongst democratic nations the exercise of local powers
cannot be intrusted to the principal members of the community as
in aristocracies. Those powers must either be abolished, or
placed in the hands of very large numbers of men, who then in
fact constitute an association permanently established by law for
the purpose of administering the affairs of a certain extent of
territory; and they require a journal, to bring to them every
day, in the midst of their own minor concerns, some intelligence
of the state of their public weal. The more numerous local
powers are, the greater is the number of men in whom they are
vested by law; and as this want is hourly felt, the more
profusely do newspapers abound.
The extraordinary subdivision of administrative power has
much more to do with the enormous number of American newspapers
than the great political freedom of the country and the absolute
liberty of the press. If all the inhabitants of the Union had
the suffrage -but a suffrage which should only extend to the
choice of their legislators in Congress -they would require but
few newspapers, because they would only have to act together on a
few very important but very rare occasions. But within the pale
of the great association of the nation, lesser associations have
been established by law in every country, every city, and indeed
in every village, for the purposes of local administration. The
laws of the country thus compel every American to co-operate
every day of his life with some of his fellow-citizens for a
common purpose, and each one of them requires a newspaper to
inform him what all the others are doing.
I am of opinion that a democratic people,
[2]
without any national representative assemblies, but with a great number
of small local powers, would have in the end more newspapers than
another people governed by a centralized administration and an elective
legislation. What best explains to me the enormous circulation of the
daily press in the United States, is that amongst the Americans I find
the utmost national freedom combined with local freedom of every kind.
There is a prevailing opinion in France and England that the circulation
of newspapers would be indefinitely increased by removing the taxes
which have been laid upon the press. This is a very exaggerated
estimate of the effects of such a reform. Newspapers increase in
numbers, not according to their cheapness, but according to the more or
less frequent want which a great number of men may feel for
intercommunication and combination.
In like manner I should attribute the increasing influence
of the daily press to causes more general than those by which it
is commonly explained. A newspaper can only subsist on the
condition of publishing sentiments or principles common to a
large number of men. A newspaper therefore always represents an
association which is composed of its habitual readers. This
association may be more or less defined, more or less restricted,
more or less numerous; but the fact that the newspaper keeps
alive, is a proof that at least the germ of such an association
exists in the minds of its readers.
This leads me to a last reflection, with which I shall
conclude this chapter. The more equal the conditions of men
become, and the less strong men individually are, the more easily
do they give way to the current of the multitude, and the more
difficult is it for them to adhere by themselves to an opinion
which the multitude discard. A newspaper represents an
association; it may be said to address each of its readers in the
name of all the others, and to exert its influence over them in
proportion to their individual weakness. The power of the
newspaper press must therefore increase as the social conditions
of men become more equal.
[2]
I say a democratic people: the administration of an
aristocratic people may be the reverse of centralized, and yet
the want of newspapers be little felt, because local powers are
then vested in the hands of a very small number of men, who
either act apart, or who know each other and can easily meet and
come to an understanding.