The record-union., 1897-07-03
DAILY RECORD-UNION
ISSUED BY THE
SACRAMENTO PUBLISHING COMPANY
Omce: Third Street. bet en- and n.
OF NEWS.

The Stockton Record" asks: rs
crime the chief matter of human con-
cern?" Add and scandal, neighbor ana
then apply to the san Francisco nude
press for an answer. The 'Recoro
adds. after enumerating the number OF
criminal news items in a single days
report of the Associated Press:
1t leads one to wonder if crime is the
most interesting news that can be OBJ
tafned. and if it is good that readers
should live so constantly in an atmos-
phere of murder, suicide, burglary and
abduction. Is there nothing industrial,
nothing social, educational, religious,
amusing or otherwise, that can inter
est the public, and especially youger
readers, and turn their attention away
from these narrowing details of crime?
Is it any wonder that people are grow
ing crazy and that children are at
tempting hold-ups and train wrecklng!
Is it strange that people are escaping
by suicide from such a world, where
every day brings a new carnival OF
blood-new tragedies to graft on I'M
pressionable minds? 1t is almost sick
ening to pick up morning paper ana
find a half a score of suicides and a
dozen murders detailed on the first
page. And yet it seems to be the
chosen literature of the homes.
Oh yes, good news is plentiful. This
is an inventive age. 1t is an age and
day of discovery. 1t is a day of edu-
cation, of endowments, of great moral
movements, of scientific demonstration
and of art achievement 1t is a day
rich with evidences of human progress
ion. 1t is time overfiowing with news
of good deeds, high records made, great
works promoted great charities for
warded, great industries conducted, and
so on.
But does our contemporary imagine
for one moment that the nude press
wants any news of that kind? Take
any New York sensational paper,
Sunday edition for instance. For art
it gives pictures of half-nude actresses,
and the story of an artist who loved
well but unwisely and unlawfully, ex-
cusing the lapse because of the artistic
nature. For science it covers a half
page with a silly account of some fell
lows machinery, and his text matter
explanatory of the making of dia-
monds.''
For news IN medicine it devotes
page of horrible illustration and worse
text, to accounts of surgical operations
Of especially revolving character, of
value only to the technicalist, even if
true. For discovery it has something
of the outfit Lieutenant Peary pro-
poses to take on the trip he is to make
in search of a north polar passage. For
poetry it doles out a lot of vulgar
verse, not 1fbidinous, but the verse of
the gutter. For religious news it re-
tains the fall of a clergyman, with pic
lures Of the wrecker of a home.
For travel it has two full pages de-
voted to fiction of adventure, written
in precisely the style to induce green
boys to desert their homes, and go upon
the path of conquest of the Yuma In
dians. For astronomical news it has
a wild-eyed and coarsely illustrated ar
ticle upon the canals of Mars, that has
rot the backing of a known astronomi-
cal authority. For mechanical news a
picture of a chainless bicycle, for news
of charities a fair description of an Or
phan's Home and portrait of the CIV
er of much money to humane societies.
All else is a revel and pictorial display
of vice, crime, prostitutes, butchery,
want, misery, woe, deceit, seduction,
outrage, nameless offenses, and so on
through a bulky number overfloWing
with communicating filth.
oh yes, there is good news in plenty
but the purveyor supplies what the
nude press demands as we'll as that
decency wishes, and it is left to the de-
cent press to throw out so far as it
can, the absolutely filthy to present
real news, uncolored, and print all that
it can procure of that which is helpful,
Informing, elevating, educating and
hopeful, without suppressing an essen
tial news item that concerns the world
OF worthy readers.