The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-07-10
CONSERVATIVE PRESS
IRELAND'S TRIBUTE TO RE-
 LIABLE NEwsPAPERS.
Their Work for the Welfare oi Humanity Only Equaled by Harm Done by Sensation
 loving Journals.

Minneapolis, July 9.-Archbishop John Ireland tonight addressed the general ses- sion of the National Educational AsSo- clatio on Devotion to Truth the Chief Virtue of the Teacher"
 He said, in part:
 '.I am one of those who see in the se- quence of the late Spanish-American war the guiding hand of mighty ProVidence' and the outburst of forces long gather ing in the bosom of the nation, sure, at one moment or another, to break out in resistless self-assertion. Nevertheless. l shall never deny that among the imme- diate causes of the war there are to be numbered the exaggerated statements, the lies, too, and the calumnies, the ceaseless appeals to wild and reckless passion, which disfigured and disgraced the utterances of certain newspaper writers and of certain other manipuia- tors of public opinion. I know for fact that the instructions going from the or fee to it's European correspondent reao thus:
 Wire all that makes for war; nothing that tends to prevent or delay it.
 Grave, indeed, were causes demanding from America a solemn act; strong were the provocations given to ruffie the na- tioual temper; yet, we can never approve the methods in which falsehood and pas sion play a large part; and we cannot but assert that 1t were immensely bet ter for the country if results attained through war should have been attained without the carnage and havoc of war.
 ''How unguarded and reckless, and how reprehens ibe many statements published at the present time. as from the Philip pine Islands. purporting to tell of dread- full deeds of cruelty and injustice from which on close examination. no founda- ton in fact is found. I shall name in this connection one instance, which | am particularly pleased to censure. 4 little while ago certain Catholic newspapers raised the cry that proselytism is the order of the day in the schools of Manila.
 ''The chief officials, it was said, and the teachers in the normal schools. were regularly ordained ministers, who divided their time between the multiplication
 table and tract reading
 "The matter was investigated, and it was discovered that the chief officials and l teachers in the normal were not minis ters, and that their own good sense, as | we'll as the strict rules of the govern | ment, made them attend strictly to | secular matters. The newspapers which admitted into their columns such state | ments have since inded repudiated it, meanwhile much nedless excitement was raised and much harm done.
 If l were to choose where outside the l class room for the general welfare of | humanity I should have devotion to truth prevail, I should name the newspaper.
 The newspaper is today prominently the
 mentor of the people. It is read by all;
 1t is believed by nearly all. Journalism | that is honest and honorable is one of | the nations most precious inheritances; | that which places notoriety and pelf | above truth and virtue. and adopts as its tactics stunning sensation rather than | the calm statement of facts, is one of ! the nations direct calamities."