The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1886-09-17
Newspaper DepraYitY.

Eighty-tive years ago Fisher Ames
wrote his caustic address to printers,
in which he said: 1T seems AZ If
newspaper wares were made to fit 4
market as much rs any other goods.
The starers and wonderers and gapcrs
engross a very large share of the atten-
ton of all the sons of type. =
Gazettes, it is seriously to be feared,
will not long allow room to anything
that is not loathsome or shocking. A
newspaper is pronounced to be very
lean and destitute of matter if ii con-
tains no account of murders, suicides,
prodigieS or monstrouS births. Some
of these tales excite horror, and Others
disgust; yet the fashion reigns like a
tyrant to relish wonders, and almost TO
relish nothing else. Is this a reasona-
bic taste, or is it monstrous and worthy
of ridicule? The printing Of
wonderful tales of crime is worse than
ridiculous, as it corrupts both the pub
lie taste and morals. The most vacant
mind is the most in need of such re-
sources as cost no trouble or scrutiny
or reflection"
AS it was in Fisher Ames' day, SO il
is now, only shamelessly more preva-
lent. The Journalist, agreeing to what
one of Americas best and greatest men
has so well written on u growing,
nauseous evil, cries ''halt!n to the
fragrant indecency of modern daily
prints. 1t has been aptly. bitterly said
hat ''the disposition to indulge in
meretricious stories is no more marked,
as a characteristic of newspapers, than
their utter disregard of the privacy of
home and of the rights of character.
No family is so humble as to be safe
from their prying curiosity, no station
so exalted as to command their re-
spect." This is a true bill of indict-
ment; a terrible arraignment. Honored
names have been mired by type scan
dial, and the detestably vile exalted as
heroes of lust or rapine. Salaciousness
has run riot, this very week, in the
New York Herald. and its columns
have reeked with filth. We specially
impale the Herald, because in its
cabled details Of the English high
society Dixie Crawford Foster beastii
ness, it has outstunk all of its sewer
fed rivals.
Our great (2) dailies have a lexicon
and a law unto themselves. Thief"
has been modified in their vocabulary.
and now reads ''defa.cation.n What
vas once known, in speech and print
us '~'harlotry," is now called flirting.
At this hou., by newspaper standard.
the virtuous dame il less popular han
| the brazen, scarlet On
Wednesday last the bulletined heroine
was Mrs. Crawford. As she sat in o
away, she was minutely pen-pictured.
and her every syllable of feculence
noted for the delectation of the vacant
minds that reyel in Mackey-Bennett
ocean specials.
1t is not that our homes are degrad-
ed by such type-taint, but that the
young and inquisitive, prompted by the
conduct of vicious elders, find ready
apologies for ~precocious ;1moralities,
In the fact that what is outrageously
naughty and deseryedly condemnable
is always glaringly hea6-lined in the
newspapers; that whatever ~is.atrociOus-
ly wicked, whatever is soul-and-body
destroying, whatever is illicit and pol
luting, is geographically reported as
of absorbing interest. tho bonnie bouchc
Of news, the acme Of journalistic sur
prise and enterprise.
The Journalist remembers a time
when editors of morning and evening
papers gave some thought to decency.
1t recollects when trials for seduction
and rape were handled with gloves;
when suits for divorce were briefly re-
ported. with an interpolated or affixed
explanation: The details are too filthy
for our readers eyes Now it has
come to such a deplorable pass that
eyes, nose and every sense, befouled by
variations in type, that
Would make q door plate blush for shames
If d~oor-plates weren't SO b~razen,n
appear to have lost their natural privI-
lege. No more is delicate sensibility
RECALLED with the pure expression Of no.
BILE ideas. The universal teacher"
Gas the newspaper of late years has been
50 often mis-titled) is a fraud upon its
face when reflected in the mirror Of
virtue. Henry clay Lukens, ia tie
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