Evening Spiders
Reform Project

There is nothing more vain or more disappointing in the world than the profession of opinion journalist. The pamphleteer is a man who fights not even against windmills, but against shadows. The blows he believes he delivers to his adversaries do not reach their destination; they are sword thrusts in the water. By what singular illusion do so many everyday philosophers believe they can correct error and convince the heretic? In reality, each of these hacks, from the height of his newsprint pulpit, only ever preaches to the converted. The infidels, those to whom he dedicates his best arguments, do not listen to him; they go to hear mass in another chapel where the truth is better suited to their tastes. If we look closely, there is, in these useless efforts of persuasion, a waste of energy incompatible with the interests of a well-ordered society and which a government conscious of its duties would hasten to put an end to. It would not, moreover, be as difficult as one might think. It would be enough, to carry out this wise reform, to place in all the newspaper kiosks, in all the station or Metro libraries, in all the retailers, a well-styled civil servant. To the customer who came to ask for L'Humanité, for example, this employee would authoritatively give L'Action Française or La Victoire; if you asked for L'Echo de Paris, you would see L'Ere Nouvelle arrive through the ticket office (because there would be a ticket office); The ordinary reader of La Croix should accept, willingly or unwillingly, an issue of Le Libertaire, etc.
It is only by this means that we could establish, in France, the free circulation of ideas and foster a taste for this discussion from which, it seems, light springs.

Bernard GERVAISE.