The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-10-17
CANT AND RANT REPLIED TO.

Journalistic champions of both par
ties"
The Herald is a journalistic cham
pion of the Democratic party. We
leave the champions of the other party
The Herald, while we do. not recognize
the jurisdiction of our self-appointed
censor, we enter a plea of mot guilty"
Looking over the Pecksniffian article
for a bill of particulars, we find moth
ing but generalities, with this excep-
ton, in reference to reports of political
meetings:
ION the one hand it is published that
the hall was crowded and the speak
er's sallies were greeted with applause;
on the other hand we read of the same
occurrence. that "a few small boys
composed the audience and the speaker
encountered chilly frost ;"
There is some approach to accuracy
in that arraignment Conflicting ac-
counts of the same thing do appear in
partisan papers. Both cannot be cor
rect. But does it follow that both are
''willful lies? Not at all. One of
them may be absolutely true. How
does the News know which? If the
public want to know, they cannot find
out from the News which does not
give the news on this point. If the
public want TO read the news on polit-
ical matters they have to go to the
morning papers to find 1t.
The Herald is opposed to giving false
accounts Of meetings or speeches, and
the writer of this deprecates the COM
mon method OF interlarding with sour
rdlous or satirical remarks a. report of
any mans address. But supposing the
contradictory comments as to the num-
should both be an exaggeration or
quite inaccurate, does that justify the
language used by the church organ in
reference to it? Let us see. Here are
few of the explosives used by the
assumed advocate of higher journal
ism which thinks "either of the papers
referred to- is unfit TO place before
their children: Base and paltry
tricks" jackal pettifogger"; ''harpies
and leeches;:'' "distort, nlisrepresent,
lampoon and insult "falsehood and
exaggeration, inuendo and infamy;"
'willful les" rubbish 'idiotic argu-
ment:" E'ex-drunkard;' reformed sot;"
'fll-smelling morass;;'' dirty wretch
etc. etc.
That Is fine specimen of pure jour
nalism, is it not? All those choice epi
shallow editorial intended as a moral
lecture to the political press! 1t is
evidently projected for another pur-
pose: the end sought by News travelling
agents when they say, Don't take that
filthy sheet referring to The Herald,
take the News" 1t is high moral
smugness and business effort COM
language in "either of the papers re-
ferred to- than in that appeal for pa
tronage, we have not seen 1t.
The Herald again calls for particu-
lars. If it contains almost daily a
dozen wirlful Hes" some of them can
surely be pointed out. If any Of them
or even any mistakes Of fact have oc-
CURED in these columns, we win be
pleased on proof to retract or explain.
AS the charge stands, we repudiate it
utterly as made in spleen and in the
spirit of falsehood and misrepresenta-
ton.
Now as to the only attempt at argu-
n1ent in the TRADE of villificat1on that
constitutes the News editorial. 1t says:
We have heard the idlotic argument
that a man who admits that he does
not read such papers is incompetent to
pass upon their dement's. The same
logic would say that the only man fit
to give a temperance lecture is the
awful example," the ex-drunkard, the
lateiy-reformed sot; or that the only
competent adviser against an ill-sme1l-
ing morass. is the dull, dirty wretch
who has long rolled and reveled in it.
We ask every fair-minded and can
did reader OF this reply. to decide
whether the argument in the first part
of that quotation is 'ddiotic'' Is it
not. on the contrary, self-evidently
true? And is not the term 'idfotic"
exactly appropriate to the latter parts
of the above excerpt? Has not the
News. times without number, acclaimed
against the injustice of condemning
Mormon" works unread? Has it not
argued to the exact contrary of its
present unsound position? Is a man
competent to decide as TO the truth or
falsity Of a paper or article which he
has never read?
We cry shame on the News for its
sophistical and untenable attempt to
compare the criticism of an article or
paper without reading It, to the con-
domination of intemperance without
getting drunk, etc. Can any one Justly
complain of anything about which he
personally knows nothing? Are either
papers or persons to be condemned by
hearsay evidence? There has been too
much of that for the good of both the
conaemner and the condemned.
We will say. most empllatically, even
at the risk of being pronounced '-idi-
Otto by the chaste, heightened and
top-lofty epithet-slinger of the News,
that no man, woman or angel is justi-
fed in saying that a paper is filled with
lies which he has not examined to find
out what 1t does contain. And if he
body else's report and does not know
himself anything about it, he has no
right before God OF before men to pub
lfcly denounce or assail it.
AS for the rampant attack of the
News. as we'll as its transparent essay
at so-cal1ed argument, we have only to
repeat for its own application the clos
ing words of It's Incorporate effusion-
for both there can be no gentler SEN
tfment than pity and no softer feeling
than contempt"