Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-08-07
Serious Riot of Coal and Iron Miner
An Improvement of Newspaper Morals
Suggested.

An Improvement OF Newspapers" Morals
Suggested.
EDS. REcoRDUNIoN: viii you permit
me, through your own journal, to quietly
box your ears? Very we'll | have been
a close reader of the RECORD UNION for a
number of months, and it is still daily
visitor at my house. 1t is my custom to
rise early each morning and read YOUR
paper for about an hour, and ! confess |
find many things therein that are COM
mendable. For instance, l. with all the
rest OF the moral community, have been
greatly pleased with the stand you have
taken in the matter of gambling. Your
wholesome efforts, which no doubt aided
materially in bringing about the suppress
sion of that vice in all the city of Sacra-
mento, have been comforting and assuring
to all good men.
| like very much the articles, by far too
few in number. denouncing the lawless
system of mining that is so rapidly de-
stroying our river and harbor. Though
differing from you i'll politics, think that
you are candid at least in AL your political
views expressed, and you seem to treat
Your opponents with courtesy and fair
ness. like your crisp, newsy locals and
Brief Notes" | like the makeup" and
the nice, clean print; and | might easily
point out many other things in your Jour
nal that are commendabe. But. notwith-
standing these, find very much fault with
your journal, and, though you may not be
aware of it yourself, it is an immoral
journal. Not more so than contemporary
sheets-in fact less than some newspapers
| could easily name, but none the less con-
sidered immoral by the great body of
moral and religious people in Sacramento.
1, 80, .lg..,,
a great Bishop or other divine, noted for
learning and goodness, visits Sacramento
and entertans a thousand people-well-
TODD, cultured and retined-with an ad-
dress burning with eloquence and logic.
the said Bishop or man of eloquence if
noticed at all in your columns, receives a
mention occupying about half an inch of
space. But if some big-fisted Sullivan,
who has never developed anything but his
fist and his brute nature, appears before a
thousand people as depraved as he, and for
their entertainment pounds fellow mortal
into jelly, your journal will devote to him
an entire column.
Do you plead guilty, Mr. Editor? If so.
hold over until |, with loving hand, box
the other ear. 1t may be well known to
you that about four thousand people in the
city OF Sacramento are attendants of the
different churches every Sabbath They
are regularly entertained by addresses from
men who are as pious, as learned, as elo-
quent as any the State can afford, yet we
see no mention of these things in your
Mondays issue. Instead, however, you
make prominent in your journal the Sun
day record of crimes of all sorts. If some
low prostitute outwits some lower prosti-
tuter, and, playing game of ''t tit for tat,
succeeds In getting all the tat in the shape
OF his dollars and cents, it receives twenty
line notice. A pigeon shoot for $50 side
is duly honored in your columns. The
doings Of a baseball club of interest to no
one excepting those actually engaged, re-
ceiyes, some times, whole column. Cor
rect? Do you plead guilty?
Well, what oft? Very much. A jour
nal read every day by 10000 people is a
beyond computation. Silently and surely
it is molding, shaping, directing character.
Perhaps 30 per cent. of all the readers of
the RECoRD-UEI read nothing else, as a
rule; or if they do read something else it
is literature of like character The news
paper is their gospel They live by it.
They consult its columns with intense
delight. They quote it, feast upon it, and,
when through with it, send it to their
friends. Given: A community whose
newspapers are filled with matters of his
terry, biography, Jurisprudence, and the
wholesome happenings of local and general
interest and you will have a community
where the record of crime is not great
And, though strange paradox it is, such
communities are found. l know city in
South America. fully as large as Sacra-
mento, supporting two large daily papers,
where crime is notrecorded once month,
and where during residence of three years
not a solitary murder, with one exception,
was recorded.
Here in America hell is fairly turned in
side out every day and its very vomit
spread upon the pages of the press. The