The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1902-09-12
WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
Is AMERICAN CIVILIZATION ROTTEN TO
THE CORE.

THE CORE.
When man sees in his body any
abnormal growth new to it he goes
straight to doctor and finds out
whether it means death to him or not.
And when the newspapers bring to US
every day instances Of abnormal
changes in our habits and manners, it
behooves us to look into them and find
out what they mean. Are they SYM
toms of mortal disease? Is Ameri-
can civilization. as an English critic
told us the other day, rotten to the core?
For example: A young man and wo-
man 60 out at night in boat together
and are found dead in the morning,
and the community is not surprised,
but only concerned to know-why.
Was it suicid,? Or did some other
young man with whom the young wo-
man took midnight sails murder them
both?
Again: A burglar enters dwelling
at night and kills the owner. Worse
dangers than death threaten a man
nowadays when a burglar breaks into
his house, for We, the public, demand
the details as If every crime were a
new melodrama served up for us first
nighters. The reporters of the yellow
journals and the police, not finding the
burglar-whose trial would entertain
us-often accuse tn" w"m,n of the
family of unchastity and the men Of
murder. There may not he shadow
of foundation for such charge-but
the public is amused. The stories
thrown to it are often as foul as the
carrion on which jackals feed.
Can it be that the American appe-
tite demands such food?
Have any of us forgotten how, two
years ago, burglar. in his escape
from house, shot and killed young
girl in it, and how thencetorth the fam
ily-Quict, gently bred people-became
the prey of the police and the yellow
journals? Their harmless lives, all Of
their little innocent domestic customs
were held up to the greedy curiosity
of the whole nation; we were told how
they dressed, how they ate, how they
prayed. The old mother was forced
to describe for us again and again her
child's death; how the blood gushed
from her breast as she lay dying in her
arms, and-that no dramatic touch
might be wanting-a child, the sister
of the dead girl, was brought forward
to tell what hymns they had sung to-
gether an hour before the murder.
In another more recent case, where
burglar shot the householder, the
police, not finding him, tore open the
history of the family Of the murdered
man in the hope of unearthins some
entertaining secret. The sole result
was that they found that a pretty, silly
woman with husband and children
whom she loved, had once, years ago,
gone to cafe for supper with one man,
was suspected of exchanging notes
over the fence with another and of
making eyes" at consumptive up
holstcrer who came to tack down
the carpets. Her husbands family de-
fendel her with indignation. Not a
single proof of illdoing was found
against her.
But what did that matter! The
whole nation sat in jud gment on he.
for weeks. One would think, even il
the worst had been true, that the
wheels of time might still have revolved
calmly, and that the fact that one Of
our 35,000,00G Of women had gone
astray would have caused but a mo-
mentary national pang of pity and
been forgotten. But no! Day after
day the details of her little supper and
her sympathy for The ailing npholster
er were served up to the American
people, not by yellow journals alone
but by journals of the soberest coloring.
Now, do the American people really
want this kind of entertainment!
Sane, thoughtful people, too, discov-
er lately malignant f,rcb, ding in the
kind of literature urged upon us by
ou: literary caterers and the men who
assume the Office of critics and CEN
sors. They jeer at the live men and
women of Anthony Trollope, at the
great human passions which Thackery
uncovered for us, and at the love
which the world still gives to Scott
that brother of US all-and they urge
upon us books in which abnormal and
diseased passions are painfully dissect-
ed. The heroines are always women
in low. wit n ot har mon than their