The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-05-16
"YELLOWISM."
England Threatened with an Inva-
sion of This Unpleasant MaIady.
London Mail.

The very latest afflictioE OF this decadent
age is-yellowsm By this time most peo-
pie, except in the extreme rural districts
are aware that the great American republic
there are several of them) is enjoying a
more or less literary output known as yell
low journalism.
There are three reasons given for the
title, one being that New York newspaper
made a great feature Of the yellow fever
scare, issuing hourly editions full of absurd
exaggerations; another accounts for the
origin. of the phrase by the fact of the eX-
tras being often printed on yellow paper
but the real origin of the term probably lay
in an immensely popular series of fictions
in the New York World, illustrating the ex-
ploits of a character known far and wide
This yellow Kid" was a sort of pre-
cocious gamin-cum- brownie-cum- Wallypug
initiated in other New York journals. Soon
whole pages were being printed, mainly in
yellow. recou1nting the adventures of the
yellow Kid" The Yellow Kid generated
an entire species of draughtsmanship and
letterpress. In all the unpleasant rivalries
between those two millionaire newspaper
pr oprietors, Messrs. Pulitzer and Hearst,
the Yellow Kid played prominent part.
Mr.. Godkin the editor of the New York
Evening Post is generally credited with
having first referred to yellow journalism.
He described it as that section of the public
press which pandered to the lower instincts
of humanity, which reveed in sensational
ism, which dealt in canards and horrors
grammar
telling phrase is going entirely to be con-
fined to journalism. II is much too good a
term TO be wasted when there is much
need of it. Why not yellow politics. yellow
literature, yellow art, and-thiS above all
yellow drana2 And so at this moment
wave of yellowism is sweeping over Amer
lea. It's watchwosd is sensationalsm. Do
something daring, something to make a stir,
to make people talk, or lin transatlantic
phrase) to make people sit up"
And somehow, mere Briton ponders
upon this curious phase of decadence. he
recalls that in his own country there used
to be a. kind of literature-not so comman
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. as yellow-backed novels.
These were generally supposed to be pot
pourri of blood and thunder, cheap senti-
ment, and a great deal of the doubtful; in
fact, ii was sort of THE Conquerors" i'm
book form, with the trifling exception that
It I've, Vas ! rarely i dull Then came & quarterly
there came along the yellow Aster." We,
too. have had our yellowness in literature.
and now going to have if what a
prominent English actor recently returned
from Yellow Land says is correct, our yell
low drama.
of drama provided by the syndicate. The
syndicate in America is all-powerful. Just
as there are wheat trusts to control all the
wheat, sugar trusts to CONTROL all the
sugar, oil trusts. coffee, beer and whisky
trusts. so there has within the last year or
two grown up q dramatic trust to control
al the drama. 1t is not generally known on
this side of the water that nearly the whole
or the theaters in most of the large cities
of the United States are controlled bV a sim
gle syndicate. Almost every actor and ac-
tress in the United States of any repute-
among the few exceptions being Mr.. Joseph
Jefferson and Miss Minnie Maddern-are in
the pay of a solitary concern. Twelve of
the principal playhouses in New York city
are in the syndicate's hands with such
IA monopoly the kind Of drama the syndi-
cate provides is naturally one which it suits
item TO provide. Competition being thus
i slain, and theater-going being habit with
most Americans, the audience has to put up
with what it can get.