The Free Press

The Free Press

The Free Press

Great bodies of men who cared intensely for a definite creed found that expression for it was lacking, even if
this creed (as in France) were that of a very large majority in the State. The "organs of opinion" professed a
genteel ignorance of that idea which was most widespread, most intense, and most formative. Nor could it be
otherwise with a Capitalist enterprise whose directing motive was not conversion or even expression, but mere
gain. There was nothing to distinguish a large daily paper owned by a Jew from one owned by an Agnostic or
a Catholic. Necessity of expression compelled the creation of a Free Press in connection with this one motive
of religion.
Men came across very little of this in England, because England was for long virtually homogeneous in
religion, and that religion was not enthusiastic during the years in which the Free Press arose. But such a Free
Press in defence of religion (the pioneer of all the Free Press) arose in Ireland and in France and elsewhere. It
had at first no quarrel with the big official Capitalist Press. It took for granted the anodyne and meaningless
remarks on Religion which appeared in the sawdust in the Official Press, but it asserted the necessity of
specially emphasizing its particular point of view in its own columns: for religion affects all life.
This same motive of Propaganda later launched other papers in defence of enthusiasms other than strictly
religious enthusiasms, and the most important of these was the enthusiasm for Collectivism--Socialism.

Hilaire Belloc