Needless to say, the great increase in the number of American
readers and the corresponding decline in the average intelligence
and discrimination of the reading public had much to do with the
success of the journalistic magazine. Yet it may be stated, with
equal truth, that the rapid advance in the average intelligence of
the American public as a whole made a market for a super-newspaper
in which nothing was hurried and everything well done. The
contributions to literature through this new journalism have been
at least as great during the period of its existence as from the
"quality" magazine, the contributions toward the support of
American authors much greater. Like all good journalism, it has
included real literature when it could get and "get away with it."
Birth, however, in the literary as in the animal world, is
exhausting and often leaves the parent in a debility which may
lead to death. The periodical essay of the eighteenth century bore
the novel of character, and died; the Gothic tale of a later date
perished of the short story to which it gave its heart blood. The
family magazine of the literary order has been debile, so radical
critics charge, since its journalistic offspring began to sweep
America.
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