Select Speeches of Kossuth. Lajos Kossuth

you, conscious of your noble vocation and instinct with the generosity of freedom, protect our sacred rights against the dark plots of tyranny. Your Independent Press has likewise proved that its freedom is the most efficient protection even against calumny; a far better one than restrictive prevention, which condemns the human intellect to eternal minority.

      I address you, gentlemen, with the greater joy, because through you I have the invaluable benefit of reaching the whole of your great, glorious, and free people.

      Eighty years ago the immortal Franklin's own press was almost the only one in the colonies: now you have above three thousand newspapers, with a circulation of five millions of copies. I am told that the journals of New York State alone exceed in number those of all the rest of the world outside of your great Union, and that the circulation of the newspapers of this city alone nearly reaches that of the whole empire of Great Britain! But, what is more—I boldly declare that, except in the United States, there is scarcely anywhere a practical freedom of the press. Indeed, concerning Norway I am not quite aware. But throughout the European continent you know how the press is fettered. In France, under nominally republican government, all the fruits of victorious revolutions are nipt by the blasting grip of centralized power—legislative and administrative omnipotence. The independence of the French press is crushed; the government cannot bear the free word of public opinion; and in a republic, the shout "Vive la république" is become almost a crime. This is a mournful sight, but is an efficient warning against centralization. It is chiefly Great Britain which boasts of a free press; and assuredly in one sense the freedom is almost unlimited: for I saw placards with the printer's name stating that Queen Victoria is no lawful queen, and all those who rule ought to be hanged; but men only laughed at the foolish extravagance. Nevertheless, I hope the generous people of Great Britain will not be offended when I say that their press is not practically free. Its freedom is not real, for it is not a common benefit to all: it is but a particular benefit, that is, a privilege. Taxation there forbids the use of newspapers to the poor. Absence of taxation enables your journals to be published at one tenth, or even one twentieth, of the English price: hence several of your daily papers reach from thirty to sixty thousand readers, while in England one paper alone is on this scale—the London 'Times,' which circulates thirty thousand, perhaps. Such being the condition of your press, in addressing you I address a whole people; nor only so, but a whole intelligent people.

      The wide diffusion of intelligence among you is in fact proved by the immense circulation of your journals. It is not solely the cheap price which renders your press a common benefit, and not a mere privilege to the richer; but it is the universality of public instruction. It is glorious to know that in this flourishing young city alone nearly a hundred thousand children receive public education annually. Do you know, gentlemen, what I consider to be your most glorious monument? if it be, as I have read, that, when your engineers draw geometrical lines to guide your wandering squatters in the solitudes where virgin Nature adores her Lord, they place on every thirty-sixth square of the district marked out to be a township, a modest wooden pole with the glorious mark, POPULAR EDUCATION. This is your proudest monument. In my opinion, not your geographical situation, not your material power, not the bold enterprizing spirit of your people, is the chief guarantee of their future; but the universality of education: for a whole people, once become intelligent, never can consent not to be free. You will always be willing to be free, and you are great and powerful enough to be as good as your will.

      My humble prayers in my country's cause I address to your entire nation: but you, gentlemen, are the engineers through whom my cause must reach them. It is therefore highly gratifying to me to see, not isolated men, but the powerful complex of the great word PRESS, granting me this important manifestation of generous sentiment. I beg you to consider, that whatever and wherever I speak, is always spoken to the press; and for all the imperfections of my language let me plead for your indulgence, as one of your professional colleagues: for indeed such I have been.