The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1904-03-05

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to consider the motives impelling some
of its news gatherers.
The business of the religious paper
| is to make the business of disseminat.
ing ISLANDERS on Catholics an unprotit.
able and even dangerous business fol
the careless or the malicious propa.
gator thereof. When the obscene
birds of bigotry We're chattering false
hoods and insult throughout the land
Il few years ago, they found IL larger
audience through the daily reports OF
their discourses than they did in the
churches and halls wherein they dis
coursed. The Catholic papers ultimate
ly drove them back to their own roosts
and thence to the darkness from which
they had come, and the weakened
Catholics who sought all their informa,
ton from the daily press We're de.
prived of the pleasure of seeing them.
selves and their religion insulted every
morning.
do not wish to be misunderstood
as saying that the daily papers will
fully intended any insult in reporting,
verbatim, the foul calumnies of the
various converts and escapes. -
They meant only to give the news;
but you do not think very fervently
of the kind friend who repeats to you,
with CHEEKY gusto, all the vile things
which an enemy has said about you,
and expects you to pay him for the
information.
Some amiable Catholics will pooh
poo this us a trifiing thing, and say
that we should not be too sensitive.
Possibly. The well-fed and independ-
ent man of means, perhaps, can afford
to despise such things. Nobody is like
ly to taunt him with the lies or scam
dals. But how about the boy in the
office, the mechanic in the workshop,
the laborer in the field or street, to
whom the noon hour, with its gossip
and chatting and argument, is his
clubhouse and his forum? They are
not protected from insult and inu-
endO, like their more fortunate breth-
rem. They have no ready answer to
what the paper says in black and
white"
1t is easy to say that one can afford
to dispise idle, slanderous talk, spoken
or PRINTED; but l need not say to any
one who has experienced it, that there
is hardly any suffering keener than
that of having to listen to insults
levelled ut ones creed or race in the
atmosphere and surroundings of his
daily life. Hard words break no
bones" saith the proverb, but they
sometimes break spirits, when they do
not also break hearts.
Therefore | say, it is useful for any
man or woman in the living world to
have with him an organ of his faith,
which will give him the true side of
every question. He will find those of
the other kind without looking for
thcm--nlmost without paying for
them. He can get the yellowest kind
of yellow journal, and Supply his
brain with sensations and horrors,
for the same price as we would have
to pay for a decent weekly paper that
would do nothing more than improve
his mind and cheer his soul. 1t re-
minds me of what Thoreau once said
that "a naked savage, with only a
few rude tools, can. in half day,
make for himself an idol that will
brighten the life out of him." Which
is very good thing-in an idol.
10 turn from the idol to the ideal
Is the Catholic newspaper as good as
it ought to be? Emphatically, it is
not. 1t ought to be vastly better than
it is, and it will be so, just as soon as
the Catholic reader begins to make it
SO. For the present owing to the
curious prejudice which professional
writers have against writing for moth
fng--to the lack of capital which pre-
vents publishers from being able to
buy the best contributions and the
apathy OF critical readers in support
ing Catholic papers. it is not an easy
matter to make bricks without straw
except, of course, gold bricks, which
need neither clay nor straw, nor any
thing but confidence and cheek.
Nevertheless. believe that the
Catholic newspaper, as a rule, is
wonderfully good of it's kind. If it's
publishers do not accumulate wealth,
we know that wealth is not the great
est blessing. We know that, by our
faith alone; for few of us have ever
had the occasion to prove it by per-
sonal experience. Because, or maybe
in spite of. that fact, our press is like
our religion. Il cheerful one. We do
not draw long faces, professionally or
personally. We give advice, it is true;
but no man outside of the sanctum
can imagine how much advice every
editor has to talle--sometimes.
In fine, we are private soldiers in
, the army of the Church militant. We
are not officers of line or staff, but we
, are regulars. not guerillas. for we
fight in open. giving and taking hard
knocks ut times, and finding much
comfort in Phil Kearney's immortal
saying: There's beautiful fighting
| L Il.