It might be thought that the discussions in the press would supply the deficiencies in the Constitution; that by a reading people especially, the conduct of their Government would be as carefully watched, that their opinions about it would be as consistent, as accurate, as well considered, under a Presidential as under a Cabinet polity. But the same difficulty oppresses the press which oppresses the legislature. It can do nothing . It cannot change the administration; the executive was elected for such and such years, and for such and such years it must last. People wonder that so literary a people as the Americans⁠—a people who read more than any people who ever lived, who read so many newspapers⁠—should have such bad newspapers. The papers are not so good as the English, because they have not the same motive to be good as the English papers. At a political “crisis,” as we say⁠—that is, when the fate of an administration is unfixed, when it depends on a few votes yet unsettled, upon a wavering and veering opinion⁠—effective articles in great journals become of essential moment. The Times