Grand River times. [volume] (Grand Haven, Mich.) 1851-18??, 1857-10-07
The Obscenity of the American Press.

While every honest man and woman in our
country is wondering at the increased deprav-
ity among all classes, and trying to find the
key of the great temple Of filth, so as to en-
ter and purify the Augean stable, we beg
leave to call their attention to the Journals
that enter our hearthstones, and an them they
will find the fons ct origo mali.
Take the daily press of New York. Com
meuce with the Tribune. Horace Greeley
processes to be very moral man, steady
church-goer; he is at the head of the vast
Tribune establishment, employing nearly two
hundred persons. He can, if he chooses, ex-
ercise censorship over what appears at least
on the editorial page. We took up his
sheet few days since and there we read an
expose of frail wife, discovered by her hus-
band at disreputable house in favorable
quarter IN .fagrante delicto as the law-books
have it. The affair was related with an in
finite gusto, and regard to details that would
have honored those infamous sheets, the
" Rape" Broadway Belle" or "Venus Mis-
cellany," recently suppressed by the police.
Pure girls, and ingenious boys read this i'm
maculate Tribune, and what is the result
Their moral sense becomes weakened, their
passions are unduly stimulated, and utter de-
struction of all purity and chasteness is too
often the result.
Take the Herald, another monster estab-
lishment. Old Potosi, as the Herald man
is called, issued terrible illumination against
the Tribune for the dirty article above men,
AL
pure ermine of his profession, or Rev. Suth-
erland abuses his parsonic position, and be-
comes foul leech, or Pittsburg divine is
equally guilty OF violating the ten command
ments, out comes the Herald and panders
to the vilest tastes by relating all the short
comings (and great deal more) Of these
Rev. sinners. The Daily Times is tolerably
pure, yet this paper will insert almost any ad-
vertisement for money; no matter how i'm
moral or impure it may be.
The Times, Tribune, and Herald are the
three leading daily sheets in New York.
They influence the thoughts and emotions Of
some 100000 readers. AS they are at pres
ent conducted, with no censorship exercised
over their columns, they are vast reservoirs,
of miasm, which spreads over this broad and
beautiful land, and poisons every town, vii
lage and hamlet.
Are the country press any better? not one
whit. They take their cue from the city,
and often even excel our daily sheets in pa
rading foul advertisements and spreading
forth in staring capitals the various crimes
against nature and society, SO terribly COM
mon. We have even taken up religious pa
pers, so called, aud have there seen notices,
nostrums, and articles, which, if published in
the journals of Paris, Berlin or Vienna,
would render the publisher liable to imprs-
onment and heavy fines. There is remedy
for all this, and the remedy can, and should
be applied by the sovereign people"
A good many things can be thrown over
board, as the Souchong and Hyson was in
Boston harbor, in the times that tried mems
souls" A good many articles can be extir-
pated with vim that good farmers show
when they come across a big Canada thistle
in their meadows.
If you are not for me, you are against me-
should be the motto of parents with refer.
ence to all editors and publishers who wish
to thrust before them the concentrated de.
pravity of our age, giving instead of moral
high. toned, and healthful literature, fou
fruit plucked from Cloacinan temples tha,
poison all who eat
-" All that falls from above is not Q
| hlessinon said the man with the cake of Ice