New-York tribune., 1868-04-25
TILE OBSCENE DEMOCRACY.

The bill to suppress the issue of obscene
books, papers, and pictures has been adopted
by the Legislature. We gave copy of 1t on
Thursday. 1t is most discreditable to human
nature that any man can be found TO oppose an
enactment of this character; yet such man
was found in the person of Patrick Ready, the
representative of the Democratic party from the
lid District of Kings County After the bill
had passed the Assembly, Mr. Ready tried to
get reconsideration of the vote, and to do
so, he argued that law against Obscene pub
licatons was an attack upon the Democratic
press. The motion to reconsider failed, but
not until Mr.. Ready had fully maintained his
position. And he was right. The suppression
of obscene, immoral, and disgusting literature
would strike out of existence half the democratic
journals in the country. Next to the prohibition
of iquor-selling, it would be the hardest blow
that could be given to the party. The most
widely y-circulated and most admired Democratic
paper now printed is the obscene and blasphem-
ous La Crosse Democrat. That paper, more
than any other, awakes the sympathies, and
expresses the opinions of the party. 1t has
heaped upon the memory of Abraham Lincoln
outrage that would be tolerated in no other
country under heaven; it pursues Christian as
sOcations and temperance societies with the
venom of thousand copperheads rolled into
one; it SCOTS at religion, mocks at virtue, de-
fcs God, and yOds its filthy Iheum upon
everything that good men respect or hold
sacred Under the law for the suppression of
obscene prints, this paper cannot openly circu-
late in Ncw-York And we have at home,
alSo pestilential prints only less Infamous be-
cause less able; the admirers of Brick PomerOy
are many, his imitators few; like Satan in hell
he stands among them in shape and gesture
proudly eminent. The alien Metropolitan
Record comes somewhere near its great leader;
The Sunday Mercury and The Day Book hob
bic impotently behind, and The old Guard is
quite out of sight. Mr.. Ready is also right
when his remarks apply to casual publications,
those yellow covered books and photographs of
nude women that are hawked around railway
stations, hotels, and grog-shops by lOw-browed,
sinister looking members of the party This
stuff is peculiarly relishcd and patronized by
Democrats. 1t is a manifestation of their idea
of liberty of tile press. As tho grog-shop is
the Democratic nursery, so these bawdy publ
cations are their fairy stories. Then, too there
is the half dressed style OF Democratic litera-
ture, the startling pictorial sort-Pocc Gazettes,
Sensations, Life in Boston, and papers of the
kind that no man having the least regard for
deccncy would take to his family these, too,
fall under the interdict of obscenity, and III
Just so much as their circulation is diminished
will the Democratic party suffer. And it is TO
be desired that the law may reach that notOri-
Gus public ssignation-house, the Personal" b."
column of n nameess and shameless daily
journal-a column specially set apart for the
use of lewd villains who insult school-g girls in
the street, and follow married women to their
doors, nay, even into their houses by means of
this scandalous Personal" advertising We
venture TO hope that the law will be living
power, and that its enforcement will be prompt
and general. IL ful-grown Democrats
choose to groyel in nasty stye of obscenity
and blasphemy, we presume they cannot be
entirely prevented; but society has the right
and we hope the power-to say "You shall not
"debauch your children with such stuff yOu
"are past redemption-go your ways; but the
rising generation are the proteges of the State,
" and it is the will of the government that they
" shall be kept as free rs possible from con-
" tamnaton, so far as law can secure that end.n
The bill has been signed by the Governor,
and now let it be promptly and rigor-
ously carried out, even though its enforcement
should cost the obscene Democracy the sacrifice
of some of their ablcst and best-supported
organs. ..