The press is no substitute for institutions. It is like the beam of a searchlight that moves restlessly about, bringing one episode and then another out of darkness into vision. Men cannot do the work of the world by this light alone. They cannot govern society by episodes, incidents, and eruptions. It is only when they work by a steady light of their own, that the press, when it is turned upon them, reveals a situation intelligible enough for a popular decision.

Private property was the original source of freedom. It still is its main bulwark.

The press does not tell us what to think, it tells us what to think about.

Modern men are afraid of the past. It is a record of human achievement, but its other face is human defeat.

For the newspaper is in all literalness the bible of democracy, the book out of which a people determines its conduct. It is the only serious book most people read. It is the only book they read every day.

The public must be put in its place, so that it may exercise its own powers, but no less and perhaps even more, so that each of us may live free of the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd.

The simple opposition between the people and big business has disappeared because the people themselves have become so deeply involved in big business.