The patron of husbandry. (Columbus, Miss.) 1875-1883, 1882-08-05
The Religious Press and No-
mOnOly.

Those journals were the favored
mediums of the many corrupt life
insurance companies that fourished
a few years ago for reaching and
swindling thousands of people out
of large sums of money, and the
railway corporations have doubtless
used them for a similar purpose.
No power in this country is more
to be dreaded when controlled or
influenced by railway companies
than the religious press. For such
journals are supposed to be beyond
the reach of the corrupt and cor
rupting influences that have made
the majority of the leading political
journals the SYNONYM of all that is
corrupt and treacherous. In the es-
timation of the people at large the
religious journals are all pure and
patriotic, and there are many that
are, and their advocacy of any pub
lie measure or policy or enterprise
is apt to be regarded by them as the
promptings of patriotic purpose.
When the swindling life insurance
companies were advertising so libe-
rally, these papers were earnest in
impressing upon their readers the
duty of providing for their families
in case of death by insuring their
lives, and they at least found it a
paying business however much
their duped readers turned out to
be losers. That there were some
reliable insurance companies is true;
but the unreliable were so extrava
giant in their management that any
intelligent journalist must have seen
that their collapse was but a ques-
ton of time.
A prominentin instance of religious
paper getting on untenable ground
has lately occurred in Texas. It will
be remembered that the Legislature
of that State at the last session enac-
ted law reducing railway fare to
three cents per mile and otherwise
protecting the people from the ra-
Pacity and expressions of the rail
way companies. This legislation
was recently assailed by the Bab-
list Herald, published at Houston,
a paper that enjoys a large circula-
ton among the farmers of the State,
which denounced it as unwise and
unjust to the railway capitalists who
had expended so much money in
| developing the resources of Texas.
The assault of the Herald was ex
pressed In such oily language as
was well calculated to throw the
people off their guard and place the
railway companies in an attitude Of
public benefactors to which they
ale not entitled. That journal con-
trasted the past and present condi-
ton of Texas and her people, and
held up the railway companies as
the power that had wrought out the
great improvements of the past and
was preparing for them a future of
dazzling power and wealth and
grandeur. But of the cruel oppres-
sions of the people by these soulless
monopolies, their ruthless robbery
of the public domain, amounting to
millions of acres, and their utter dis.
regard of private rights and tramp
ling upon private interests, the Her.
aid had not one word to say, not a
word in behalf of the tens of thous-
ands of women and children who
are suffering hardships and priva-
tons that these greedy cormorants
these ''pagod things of clay" may
revel in power and wealth and
splendor.
"Can such things be,
And overcome us like summer cloud,
Without our special wonder?''
The seductive language in which
the Herald clothed its assault upor
the State government for just ac
in behalf of the people might have
deceived the unthinking and gone
unrebuked, had there been no sucl
organization as the Grange in exis
tence with its faithful sentinels te
sound the alarm. But the member.
of the Order in Texas have beer
fully aroused, and they have admin
istered rebuke to the Herald tina
will not soon be forgotten. The re
ligious journal that has the temerity
hereafter to assail State law tina
affords protection to the downtrod
den people will be promptly chal
lenged, wherever there is a live, &C
tive Grange, and its power for evi
nipped in the bud.