The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-01-27
YELLOW ATROCITIES.
EXCUSE FOR COMIC SUPPLE
 MENTS NOT GOOD.

A Typographical Journal Says the
 Public Likes Beautiful Things but Is Debauched and Bllshted by Mean Things Thrust Before its Uncultured Eyes.
 That excellent artistic monthly, the | Printing Art, published at Cambridge contains in it's February number wig orous article by Lindsay Swift. on Atrocities of Color Supplement" '" which is worth the attention of those who believe that there is such thing as the printing art, and that it de-
 serves respect He says with empha- sis:
 While the illustrations of books and
 magazines has developed a high de- gree of artistic excellence, both in sub
 ject and treatment, the illustration of the daily papers especially as it re-
 1ates to the comic element, on which
 these journals lay great stress-groWs
 constantly worse in every particular;
 and the colored Sunday supplement de-
 notes it's low water mark. This curl
 ous anomaly ought to and does interest
 all who desire to see the art of print
 ing, whether formal or decorative,
 grow in wholesome, sane direction.
 The costliest and most tasteful letter
 press has something in common with
 the innumerable spawn of the yellow
 journalism; all are children born of the
 marriage of human intelligence with
 mechanical ingenuity and nothing
 which concerns this great family of the
 press is a negligible quantity.
 The beautiful examples of typogra-
 phy which the Printing Art exhibits
 every month reach the few, while the
 flagrantly. purposely inartistic printing
 of the yellow press affects the stand
 ards of the million, and from this point
 of view reaches it's lowest depths ill
 "the shameless travesty of art and hu-
 nor called comic Journalism" Mir.
 Swift does not accept the conventional
 answer that the public demands it and
 must have it.
 I am not so sure about that. The
 public visits beautiful museums and
 libraries and seems to enjoy them; it
 goes to churches where good music
 may be heard; it will support decent play and condemn a nasty one, But it
 can be debauched and can have its
 dawning sensibilities for art or any
 thing else that is worth while blighted;
 and there is no debauchery or blight
 outside the domain of obvious immo- . rality more deadening to the public
 than this continually thrusting every thing that is sordid and vulgar, and belittling before it's uncultured but cu- rious eyes.
 } Aside from their glaring ugliness, he } condemns the comic supplements for
 that had effects upon children:
 At a time when this country is seri- ously trying to implant a knowledge , of and stimulate a taste for better things, artistic and esthetic, through exhibitions in museums, libraries and ! even Sunday. schools, 1t is not little
 disheartening to realize that every step
 in this direction gets weekly setback through these colored atrocities. The
 child of sensible parents will not see or
 know about them, but the child of the
 street, the child of the indifferent
 household, will warm to them like a
 cat to the back of the stove. There are
 certain negative results at least that
 parents have a right to expect from ey- cry educative force which is brought to bear on their children shall not be de- l, llberately taught dsrespect for old age or for physical infirmities and deform- ities, that they shall not learn to cher ish contempt for other races or reli- gions than their own, that they shall ] not take satisfaction in ,tormenting ot a animals or weaklings-in short, that they shall not acquire an habitually
 cynical and unsportsmanlike attitude of mind. A morbid gloatlng over the deficiencies and humlllations of our neighbors is pretty sure to develop vul- } garity and lax moral fibre in our selves; for vulgarity of mind and man. ners seems to me to be primarily a lack of restraint in thought, feeling [ and expression regarding those tenden- cies which every civilized man and
 race IS SIT1VUB to HpoQlly UT lO COuQutT' Mr. Swift will not find himself alone in thinking these comic pictures an un- : wholesome thing for children. They . cannot be said to make for good man. ners, good behavior or good taste It is evident from their popularity that he is in the minority in thinking them "the unfunnest pictures ever con ceived by the mind of man."
 The leading motive of most of these .. humorous illustrations is the practical joke-a theme which in literature as everybody of the simplest knowledge
 understands, died a natural and de- !, served death at the end of the eigh- teenth century. No more in books are
 we expected to laugh over the ducking
 of parsons in horseponds or other bu-
 collie and heavy modes of enjoyment
 But there is a strange recrudescence to-day in our comic illustrations of tht
 making merry over the mistakes of an-
 other, Yokels now, as one hundred , and fifty years ago, are to be amused . at the butting of elderly frames by the f horns of the poIemic goat; mules are . perpetually warning on the corporea' Q welfare of the unwary; policemen are , defacing the features of innocent citi. zens the negro, the Irishman the Jew f are presented, not with that fair sense I of fun which needs offend no race or