Nature & Animals Quote by Arthur Hays Sulzberger

Sulzberger’s line is a publisher’s mission statement disguised as a parlor proverb: the press doesn’t need to strangle the cat, just point to the alley where it’s headed. “Which way the cat is jumping” frames events as kinetic, already in motion, and crucially, observable. The newspaper’s job is direction-finding, not destiny-making. Then comes the harder edge: “The public will take care of the cat.” That’s a studied refusal of paternalism. He’s betting on civic reflexes - outrage, voting, organizing, boycotting - to do the corrective work once facts are made legible.

The subtext is also a defense, and it’s not subtle. Publishers in Sulzberger’s era were perpetually accused of either pulling the strings or ducking responsibility. This formulation tries to split the difference: we’re influential, yes, but indirectly; we’re not the executioner, we’re the spotlight. It’s a neat piece of rhetorical self-exoneration that still flatters the reader as an agent rather than a consumer.

Context matters: Sulzberger ran The New York Times through the Depression, World War II, and the early Cold War - decades when “objectivity” was hardening into a professional creed and when governments and movements were fiercely contesting narratives. The quote signals a philosophy of agenda-setting without overt advocacy: establish the terrain of reality, let democracy fight on it. The risk, implied but unaddressed, is that choosing “which way” to point is already a form of handling the cat.