Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-08-17

broad publication of the indecencies OF the
Sharon trial by the press of San Francisco
irresponsible.
We might ask sorrowfully: Where were
the judicious mothers of that city during
that deluge of erotIc indecency? Where
were the protests of the pulpit against the
decentralization of that public baptism in OBJ
scenity? Where was the one honorableex-
ception in journalism to resist the tempta-
ton of corruption, or to turn in honor
able contempt from the allurements of IN
creasing circulation The stencil of that
trial pervaded the whole State. 1t invaded
every household and the devilish ingenu-
ity of direct and cross-examination left no
sexual secret to inferential obscurity. Let
the files of our San Francisco contempt
raries rise in judgment between this accu-
sation and the accused. Let them be ex-
amined to-day, and they will show forth a
degree of fostering indecency which no
nudity of art, no broad obscerity of pict-
ures can at all equal.
But worse than all this, the question
should be asked: Where were the in
stincts of decency in the public mind to
spurn these obscene publications from the
doors of virtuous homes? And yet the
responsible conductors of these same pa
pers viii in all probability resent these
just imputations, and with whining Phar-
iseeiSm declare that the commonwealth OF
this State not only did not, but should not
take any harm whatever in the exalted
opinion of virtuous mankind In very
truth, vast harm has been done. To the
minds of strangers all such opponents Of
the moral status Of any community are re-
ceived in an exaggerated form. To us
here in California the killing of Terry,
the shooting of Judge Pierce, and the in
decent revelations Of the Sharon trial,
wore a comparatively innocent aspect to
that presented by the same events in the
mind of stranger. Every act of bloody
violence is the cumulative evidence OF
lawlessness in the minds of people unac-
quainted with the community in which it
occurs.
One of the fairest domains of this ma
ton is the State of Texas. In the primi-
tive stages of its civilization a condition
of lawlessness disgraced its annals; condi-
ton which is a quarter of century in the
past, and yet that reputation is an impedi-
ment to the settlement and growth of the
State to-day. The reputation of commu-
mites, once firmly established, like the
reputation of individuals, is changed and
eliminated, not by a single act of virtue,
but only by long life of exemplary con-
duct. We seek a reinforcement of our in
dustrial population. To say that the in
decencies of judicial proceedings, and the
obscenity of their publication, ending in
deeds of blood, will not check the incoming
tide, is to declare that tide insensible tc
the moral and social conditions with which
it seeks to cast It's fortunes, and to declare
this is the equivalent of the declaration
that the populations approaching us are
highly undesirable. Our San Francisco
contemporaries have richly earned the
right to be ashamed of their participation
in that progressive graduation of immoral.
ity and slaughter which the revolving
features of the Sharon case present; but
they have in no sense earned the right to
be the champions of the moral elevation
of this people Their silence on the moral
phases of this unfortunate chapter of
State history would be an exhibition of
most becoming modesty, and is most can
didly recommended.