William and Mary Goddard, Printers and Public Servants

were those of his farm and village. He died, aged seventy-seven years, in
December 1817. Isaiah Thomas, who knew him in these later years, speaks
of "his naivete, and the pleasantness and facetiousness of his disposition,"
and asserts further that he was "a remarkably pleasant companion." One
likes to think of him, after so much distress of mind and so many exertions
of body, living unvexed and comfortable in his New England retreat.

In the various incidents which have been related here, particularly in
connection with his career in Maryland, William Goddard is presented to
us as a man who possessed the courage to stand up for his principles against
that most subtle form of attack, the disapproval of one's neighbors. One
cannot doubt the passion which underlay his pronouncements concerning
the liberty of the press; one must admire the hardihood with which he gave
himself to the vindication of General Lee's reputation; nor, when his utter-
ances are read, the policy of his newspapers considered, his services in the
establishment of the Post Office taken account of, may one doubt his devo-
tion to the American cause in the Revolution. The Maryland Council of
Safety, always ready to imprison or banish the enemies of that cause, twice
took his side against those who had attacked him. The Maryland Assembly
put his enemies to inglorious rout. In all of the official proceedings which exist
there is no hint of an accusation of disloyalty against him, and his request of
Congress that he be given a post of danger speaks for the quality of his devo-
tion in a manner more audible than the loudest asseverations of loyalty.

In taking leave of Goddard, one comes back inevitably to a brief con-
sideration of his position as the champion of the press. Of all the editors of
his day, and Isaiah Thomas says that "Few could conduct a newspaper
better than Goddard," there was none who held a view of the power, re-
sponsibility and privilege of the newspaper press nearer to the modern con-
ception of these attributes than was maintained by William Goddard. The
newspaper of today claims the right to present news and to discuss issues
regardless of the opinion of its readers; in the ideal, it professes to arrive at
truth by free discussion and by an examination of all the evidence. It is
willing to suffer unpopularity that right shall prevail in the end. It was by
the suffering of Goddard and others of his own and a later generation that
this higher conception of the liberty of the press became an accepted tenet
of modern civilization. Even though a certain class of newspapers consist-
ently degrades this hard-won liberty, William Goddard must still be ad-
mitted to have interest for us as one of the proponents of a doctrine which
on this account many deplore but the essential righteousness of which none
is so bold as to question.

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