but the standard of this decorum demands that if things are vulgar
they shall be vulgar without being funny. This journalism does
not merely fail to exaggerate life--it positively underrates it;
and it has to do so because it is intended for the faint and languid
recreation of men whom the fierceness of modern life has fatigued.
This press is not the yellow press at all; it is the drab press.
Sir Alfred Harmsworth must not address to the tired clerk
any observation more witty than the tired clerk might be able
to address to Sir Alfred Harmsworth. It must not expose anybody
(anybody who is powerful, that is), it must not offend anybody,
it must not even please anybody, too much. A general vague idea
that in spite of all this, our yellow press is sensational,
arises from such external accidents as large type or lurid headlines.
It is quite true that these editors print everything they possibly
can in large capital letters. But they do this, not because it
is startling, but because it is soothing. To people wholly weary
or partly drunk in a dimly lighted train, it is a simplification and
a comfort to have things presented in this vast and obvious manner.
The editors use this gigantic alphabet in dealing with their readers,
for exactly the same reason that parents and governesses use
a similar gigantic alphabet in teaching children to spell.
The nursery authorities do not use an A as big as a horseshoe
in order to make the child jump; on the contrary, they use it to put
the child at his ease, to make things smoother and more evident.
Of the same character is the dim and quiet dame school which
Sir Alfred Harmsworth and Mr. Pearson keep. All their sentiments
are spelling-book sentiments--that is to say, they are sentiments
with which the pupil is already respectfully familiar.
All their wildest posters are leaves torn from a copy-book.