student of history, nor any one who has, during the past generation, watched the catlike approach of paternalism in our country, will deny that this result wil. sooner or later inevitably follow, unless the general agitation of this question at the present time produces a healthy reaction.

It is clearly the duty of all citizens who realize the danger lurking behind pernicious and arbitrary precedents and the great injustice which sooner or later will result from the establishment of a censorship of morals and religion, to offer the most strenuous opposition to every step taken and to agitate the question. "Agitation," as Wendell Phillips once declared, "prevents rebellion, keeps the peace, secures progress, while every step gained is gained forever." The possibilities of this great republic are too grand for it to be quietly resigned to the despotism of pseudo-moralists, bigoted theologians, or political demagogues.

For true religion I cherish the profoundest reverence. For every moral impulse and spiritual aspiration that enter the soul of man I am truly grateful; while every effort that promises to elevate humanity or further the cause of true morality challenges my earnest approval. But at the same time that mock modesty which sees immorality where a pure mind beholds only beauty and grace; which would shroud the exquisite statues in tawdry drapery, thereby suggesting to every beholder the indecent thoughts that must have entered the minds of those who thus debase art, inspires in me an indignant contempt. While for that pseudo-morality which would exclude from the mails a work prompted by the highest sentiments of morality, not because its motive is impure, but because it mentions impurity and immorality as it is found in life to-day, I feel sentiments of disgust, coupled with humiliation, as I remember that in this land to-day men of such narrow vision are honored with positions of dignity and power.

The time has come when it should be clearly understood that those who raise the cry against every book written with a view to elevate morals by a merciless unmasking of the great wrongs, the corruption and immoralities which are festering under the surface of society, are the real enemies of true morality, as well as freedom, progress, and equal justice.

AN ENDOWED PRESS.

BY W. H. H. MURRAY.

It was sure to come-this discussion of American journalism. Now that it has come let it be thorough. Let the subject in its entirety be laid bare to the eyes of the people and our legislators, and especially to our journalists themselves, that the seat of the disease, its nature and virulence, may be clearly discerned and an efficient remedy applied.

What we need is a journalism that is accurate in statement, reliable in its news, discriminating in its editing, free from vulgar personalism and slanderous attack, and held strictly within the lines of what honorable and right thinking journalists the world over recognize as journalism.

The question is often asked, "What is the news?" and the tone in which it is asked is very like what we may fancy Pilate's was when he exclaimed, "What is truth? But there is no likeness between the two interrogations, viewed in the light either of the motive which prompts or the comparative difficulty in the answer required. It is often hard to say what is truth, and many have grown gray in vain seeking to know, and died seeking not having found. But it is not difficult to know what news is, nor hard to answer the interrogation as to it. Whatever has not been heard by one is news to him hearing; and as to this there is no doubt, nor can there be any, Whether the thing done is fit or unfit to be told; whether it is a thing at the telling of which decency shrinks and modesty is insulted, or is proper, instructive, and entertaining to hear, it is news to him who hears it for the first time.

If it is the duty of a newspaper using its vast and far reaching machinery for compilation and publishing, to gather up all that has happened within the circle of its almost worldwide inspection, good and bad, instructive and non-instructive, decent and indecent, pure or vile, and spread the strange medley, the dreadful melange, out on broad sheets for the public

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to read, then journalism is only a species of gossiping run mad, of ill-bred rehearsing in public and private circles, before men, women, and children, of what its all-devouring eyes, lensed like a carrion-seeking bird for all distances, beholds in this God's and devil's world of ours. To call such an employment a profession is to travesty human language and insult the noble practice of men to distinguish and ennoble by honorable classification, the worthy endeavors of mankind.

If to engage in such a dreadful business is the duty of journalism, then what self-respecting man might ever be a journalist? If the evil happenings of the world, the murders, the rapes, the adulteries, the seductions, the wretched exhibitions of its wretchedness, the portraying of its vile ones and their vileness, the vivid photographing of its festering corruptions and immoralities, if these are to be raked up and scraped together from the four corners of the earth and spread out in type in broadsides of concentrated and accentuated foulness under the name of news, then were it better that type had never been invented, and the world were relegated to that state and condition it occupied when knowledge, however limited, was comparatively innocent, and virtue and decency had, at least, the happy and sure protection of igno

rance.

It is in vain to say that the people like what they get and demand that the worst deeds of the worst men should be daily spread out in type before their eyes. This is a slander against the people. The people do not want this stuff. You can hear murmurs against it on all sides. The majority of the American people, rich or poor, high or low, are right minded. They talk, they act, they dress modestly. They will not tolerate impurities of thought and suggestion in their authors, or of speech in their companionships. Even in convivial moments and gatherings the unclean anecdote or pun is received in silence, or with protests so patent that the raconteur is abashed. There is a minority of another sort; but it is a minority. Is it good journalism to publish newspaper for the minority of its readers and for a minority of the lower sort?

Another count against our "progressive journalism" is that it is untrustworthy, and this is supreme condemnation. It is bad enough to be told of badness, but what can we say of a practice of telling of evil which never existed! Is that

news? It is bad enough to have a scandal spread out before us; but worse yet to discover that the scandal was created for our entertainment! We are all politicians in this country, and hence we all want to know just what the opposition say and do. But what partisan paper will tell its readers the actual truth in its "Washington Reports"? Verily does it not make one feel mad to be treated thus, as if he were a child or a fool? Is it good journalism not only to tell what never happened, but also to conceal what did happen in important affairs and interesting connections? Is it good journalism to convert half a reportorial corps into detectives and spies of the baser sort; to teach them the habits of the mole without being able to endow them with the mole's protection against dirt? To reward them with extra pay who can wax their ears closest to a keyhole or climb most noiselessly to a full view of a woman's chamber through the transom above the door? To decide on the guilt or innocence of a man before he has been tried by a jury, nay, before he has ever been arrested by the duly appointed officers of the law? To thrust themselves into the presence of a public man and there put two columns of words into his mouth not one of which his tongue ever knew? If this is good journalism in the opinion of American journalists, then all that we, the people, ask is that it shall be avowed, that the baseness of it may at least be slightly palliated by the courage of its avowal, and we who have the power to make the laws may know just what we have to do.

Is there any reason why the English law of libel should not be enacted and put in force among us? If there is, it has never been published. That law adopted in this country would give ample protection to property and character, here, as it does there. Make it possible for every man to hold by due and strict process of law, every editor and publisher responsible for the truth of what they write and issue concerning him, and the foul tide of exaggeration, misrepresentation, innuendo and slander, that is now poured forth from the revolving presses of the country, would be clarified in a week. The liberty of the Press is and should be held sacred in every free community, but the license of the Press should be put under ban, and without a day's delay.

The evil is not one connected with the individualism of the Press, but is in the system. In the majority of cases, the

editor is an employee. He writes what he is told to write, and has to do so or surrender his place and salary. Per sonally, the editors of our great papers are not only talented but honorable men. The reporters are bright and manly. But they act under orders. The age of blows is past, and the age of words has come. As the free Lances of mediæval times sold their swords, so these now sell their pens. The terms of their engagement forbid them to have a conscience or individual opinions. They write what and as they are commanded by the man or management that has hired them, and dare not do otherwise. And the power which commands them is money!

Money has no conscience, no honor, no patriotism, no sympathy with truth, right, and decency, and never has had. It loves and seeks but one thing, - profits. Whatever will make the paper sell, goes into it, right or wrong, true or untrue, slanderous or just, clean or unclean, it is all the same to money. Whatever will make the greatest sensation; whatever will fetch the most dirty pennies from dirtier pockets; whatever will make the most sensational publishment and call for a more sensational counter statement in the next issue, goes in. And this is called good journalism among us!

The power of the press is often made the subject of eulogy. That is one side of the theme. There is another. It is also an object of dread. By it a lie can be nationalized in a day; a vile slander made continental; an honorable reputation that noblest reward of right living, blasted forever; and a mean suspicion against the noblest of men popularized to a hemisphere. If a public man dare defend himself, his very defence is turned against him. If, maddened at the outrage, he shows his anger, he is jeered at, and misrepresented the more. If the attack drives him from public life, he finds no protection in privacy. The arrows of innuendo, of sneers, and insult, still rain upon him, and only the interposition of the grave into which he sinks at last, can protect his anguished bosom from their poisonous points. And this is good journalism!

Ask any public man if this picture is overdrawn. Ask Hayes, ask Colfax, ask Blaine, ask Cleveland, ask Conklin in his grave, ask Lincoln and Grant, ask living and dead alike, if this is an overdrawn picture of American journalism, and