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EDITED BY John C. Parish
Associate Editor of the State Historical Society of Iowa
Copyright 1920 by the State Historical Society of Iowa
(Transcribed by Gayle Harper)
Comment by the Editor
JOURALISM and HISTORY
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"Our historians lie much more than our journalists", says
Gilbert K. Chesterton. This puts us in a bad light whatever
way you take it. In order to de- fend the historian we must
acquit the journalist of mendacity, and we fear the jury is
packed against him. So we prefer to ask to have the case
thrown out of court on the grounds that Mr. Chesterton brought
the charges merely for the sake of eulogizing a third
individual – the artist – as a true recorder of the past. Of
which more anon.
In spite of this implied indictment of
journalism, we wish to announce that the next issue of THE
PALIMPSEST will be a Newspaper Number, wherein will be
disclosed some of the words and ways of the early editors.
They were often more pugnacious than prudent, and since
prudence sometimes conceals the truth, perhaps their pugnacity
may be counted as an historical asset. At all events, news-
papers can not avoid being more or less a mirror of the times,
and an adequate history of any people can scarcely be written
without an examination of its journalism.
ART AND
HISTORY
But to return to Chesterton. His arraignment of
historians and journalists occurs in an introduction to Famous
Paintings, in the midst of an argument for the effectiveness
of the work of the old masters in popular education and the
value of the canvas in portraying the real conditions of the
past. Nor will we gainsay him in this. The artist who goes
back of his own era for subjects must make a careful
historical study of his period. The style of clothes worn by
his subjects, the type of furniture or tapestry, and the
architecture of the houses and bridges and churches of his
backgrounds must be accurate. He is in that sense an historian
as well as an artist, and his contribution is truthful or
otherwise in proportion as he has taken the pains to be a
competent historical student.
Nevertheless the best of
artists and the best of historians make mistakes. We remember
the discussion that arose a few years ago when Blashfield's
fine canvas was placed in the Capitol at Des Moines. It
depicts the westward travel of a group of pioneers crossing
the prairies by means of the ox-drawn prairie schooner. It is
a splendid piece of work, but some pioneer who had lived
through such scenes and knew whereof he spoke observed that
Blashfield had pictured the driver of the oxen walking on the
left side of his charges, whereas in reality the driver always
walked on the other side. True enough as Mr. Blashfield
himself admitted. Yet there were difficulties having to do
with the composition of the picture. The scene was arranged
with the caravan moving toward the left or west side of the
picture. Therefore, if the driver had been properly placed he
would have been more or less hidden by the oxen – an eclipse
scarcely to be desired from the standpoint of the artist. If
the directions had been reversed, the canvas would have been
criticised as showing the group coming out of the west – thus
defeating the basic idea.
The last straw of criticism was
added when an- other pioneer, referring to the symbolic
figures which Blashfield had painted in the upper part of the
picture hovering above the caravan and leading the way to the
west, remarked that when lie went west there were no angels
hovering over his outfit. So we hesitate to accept Mr.
Chesterton's implication that the artist is more infallible
than the historian or journalist.
THE REALM OF THE
HISTORIAN
But the historian is vitally concerned with the
question of the accuracy of the artist who paints of the past,
the essential veracity of the novelist who chooses historic
settings, and the truthfulness of the journalist who, with his
editorials, his cartoons, and his advertisements, is usually
the first to write the record of events. In fact the historian
must concern himself with these and all other recorders, for
the things of the past are the subjects of his particular
realm and he must keep them in order.
J. C. P. |
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