Article March 15, 1919 Issue

The Christian Science Monitor

ELBERT R. HOFFMAN

When The Christian Science Monitor was founded by Mrs. Eddy, a new era in the world's journalism was established—an international newspaper was given to mankind. In the leading editorial of the first number of this paper Mrs. Eddy said (Miscellany, p. 353): "I have given the name to all the Christian Science periodicals. The first was The Christian Science Journal, designed to put on record the divine Science of Truth; the second I entitled Sentinel, intended to hold guard over Truth, Life, and Love; the third, Der Herold der Christian Science, to proclaim the universal activity and availability of Truth; the next I named Monitor, to spread undivided the Science that operates unspent. The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind."

In the early days of journalism in America the object of a newspaper was to exploit the opinions of the editor, as well as to gather the news of the day. The publications in which Hamilton, Franklin, and Greeley promulgated their opinions were read by thousands of persons for those opinions alone. These papers were for the most part political and dealt almost wholly with political matters. Later, lesser lights began the publication of newspapers, men of mediocre ability, men who had not the faculty of expressing their ideas so readily and who had not the confidence of the people as had those old intellectuals; and as a result the influence of the editor began to wane. Then came the era of the yellow journal with its long train of evils. News items written in the most sensational way, many times without a vestige of truth, were eagerly sought for and were published with glaring headlines and page-wide streamers across the top of every front page. Very little attention was paid to accuracy. In this class of periodicals the ninth commandment, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour," was violated in nearly every paragraph. The press was thus used by the mental assassin without knowing what it was doing.

Many of these publications were, however, sectional or local in their fields of activity and their influence was circumscribed by the same boundaries. The news they gathered was not interesting to readers living outside of a radius of a few hundred miles of the offices of publication. Neither did the editorials suited to one section of the country appeal to or interest the people of another locality.

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