scrutiny of the newspapers and the other media of communications
is a comforting experience. It helps us to keep on the alert—to stay
on our toes.

As is the case with all institutions of great power and great influ-
ence, newspapers have borne their share of condemnation and ridic-
ule. I recall, for example, a bit of satire which goes this way:

"The press—what is the press?" I cried;
When thus a wondrous voice replied:
"In me all human knowledge dwells;
The oracle of oracles,
Past, present, future, I reveal,
Or in oblivions's silence seal;
What I preserve can perish never,
What I forego is lost forever. "

But in the end, all of us acknowledge that a free press is the
strongest bulwark of our liberties, and we agree with Thomas Jef-
ferson, in the oft-quoted statement he made, that "Were it left to
me to decide whether we should have a government without news-
papers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a
moment to prefer the latter. " Because Jefferson knew, as we do, that
depotism could not long survive in a land where the press is free,
wheras democracy itself would perish without the vigilance of the
newspapers.

As publishers of newspapers, you play a dual role in life. In the
first place, you are business men, who must keep a sharp eye on the
profit-and-loss activity of the business which you operate. In this role,
you must concern yourselves with such problems as advertising, circu-
lation, production and labor problems. But your newspapers, in ad-
dition to being business institutions, are also social instruments, and
as their directors, you have a public, or at least a quasi-public func-
tion. It is in this latter role that I, as a public official, know you
best. And I believe I can say, without in any way depreciating the
importance of your role as business men, that it is in your function
as directors of public, or quasi-public, institutions that you have
your heaviest responsibilities.

The vital part you play in the life of our democratic society was
accurately described by an able American journalist, Mr. Douglas
Cater, of The Reporter magazine. "It is a failure of democracy, " he

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