Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1901-09-26

Person
Scorn for the newspaper traduceIs Of
character and person. who 80 eagerly
endeavored to almond their sillsinous
treatment Of President Mckinley alive
by f0ls0me and slobhering praise OF
President Mckinley dead 10 most up
prcpriately expressed in the following
scathing lines, copied from the Chicago
Tribune:
Az, turn your column rules, 70 hypocritcsl
Smear the dead President With your
praise
Toll OF his courage aud his marines,
His yent.eness, his unohlrrsiye ways,
His high and noble qualities. Ills no
Whom late with course abuse and vile car
t1un
And ribsld Jest to public eSocration
4e he'd up. What hath wrought change
SO soon?
Go, take front seat among the mouruerS,
You who of his latest breath
Made merchandise. Weep Tor him now, ye
| knaves
Who hounded him to death.
Every sell. respecting citizen and
every respectable newspaper in the
country will echo and endorse these
sentiments. They share in the scorn
so cuttingly conveyed by these lines.
But it is a fact that many of the
journals that now are moved to righte-
Gus wrath against the oonscienoeless
sheets that visited the severest measure
OF coarse abuse, by way Of dishonest
comment and degrading carioatute. upon
President Mckinley while living. were
just as guilty 10 their attitude to-
wards President Cleveland during bis
second term in ofilce Nothing, how
ever mean. that emanated from pen aud
pencil and was printed in the columns
of now justly detested newspapers with
respect to President Mckinley, hui
found its counterpart in the columns OF
many anti Cleveland newspapers dur.
ing the four years from 1893 to 1881.
Take the New York Sun. 1t is nov
one of the foremost in denounoipg this
brutal maligners of President Mckin.
ley's personality, and yet the absu
lutely ferocious manner in which il
pursued President Cleveland anc
smptied upon him the walls, of ts
filthy calnmny-with only the misera
BILE spite of its conductor as the in
centive will long be remembered BY
the people of this country. And justly
was 1t punished for its brutal men
dacity, for in prestige and patronage
save in the prestige that attaches t.
dishonor and the patronage that panderI
to shams-the New York Sun is blu
the shadow of what 1t was score o
years ago
It is eaBily possible in this countr,
for press and people to oppose and criti
else the policy Of a national administra
, tion without descending to coarse abuse
and scurrilous utilization OF, the Chic
Executive. And yet, during the nd
ministrations of Cleveland aud McKin
ley beginning with that of the forme
there grew up a system of PERSONAL.
vindictive journalism that assumed
appalling proportions; that substitutes
, oalumuy for criticism, lying for logic
J slalder for sentiment, abuse for argu
inent, and dug up the very pithole
OF vice ior materials Win WHICH .
J, crafty private malice and partisan
4 splits. And the papers that followe
, this detachable course towards Presiden
8 Cleveland, and are now SO virtuousl
q rebuking there contemplate prototype
0 who took President Mckinley "a
a their target, ale solely responsible 70
g the evil. Their course is but an illus
9 I-tration of the homsly expression
"Satip rebuking SIM
j. Honorable newspapers will ever dra'
t the line between honest criticism an
y spiteful abuse. And they will eve
i condemn the exercise Of the latter, n
I, matter whom it may be directe
j. against.