Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1916-04-24
Monday, April a.: 1916.
We Could but We Don't.

"civic Conscience! What is Civic
Conscience?
dictionary gives "conscience' as:
CONSCIOUSNESS Of the moral good
ness or badness Of ones own conduct
or motives, together with a feeling OF
obligation to do or to be good.
Then Civic Conscience must be the
consciousness of a community OF Its
moral goodness or badness.
AS individual conscience is often
used especially with reference to feel
ings of remorse for illdoing, we are led
to wonder if civic conscience is ever
sufficiently quickened to feel remorse
for it's l-doings-civic evils that are
recognized, admitted and that might be
readily eliminated by civic honesty
and unity, are tolerated at the expense
of the young, the weak ard the de-
pendent But does our civic conscience
trouble us?
The first of last month Major Frank
q. Macomber of the Hartford Courant,
speaking at a banquet in that city,
dealt with Civic Conscience" In
manner that may interest our readers.
He touched upon the placing Of self
advantage first by saying:
I'VE speak freely of civic conscience
and within our hearts we interpret
civic conscience to mean. something
that spells advantage for ourselves, or
advantage for the special group in
which we may find ourselves. If a
plan happens to inconvenience us
bit; if movement seems to possess
elements of a nature that will handi-
cap us individually or our particular
group, we Immediately oppose it,"
He referred to the cynics and scott
ers that are met in every community:
so generally have we, as individ-
uals and as groups, developed this in
dividualisuc viewpoint that we as a
people have come to be cynics and
scoffers. If man proposes something,
undertakes some campaign. instead Of
looking at the thing proposed and
weighing it In its relation to the COM
mon good we Immediately pass it by
with cynical grin. o. commence to dig
under the surface to see If we cannot
find that he has a few tricks up his
sleeve that spell personal advantage
and private profit to him.
"Sensationalism and a desire for the
morbid and the maudlin permeates
every walk Of life"
But Major Macomber defended de-
cent newspaper and criticized public
tendencies in way that should set the
public to thinking. He said:
Newspaper publishers would prefer
to print clean newspapers; editors
would rather handle decent copy and
do real constructive journalism but we
are not supported by a foundation, or
assisted by q subsidy; we must make
profit and we must live. Men Of or
CARNATIONS such as yours often COM
plain OF the newspapers and the sort
OF news they print and yet we Of the
press, the men who must get out these
papers, who must sell these papers to
live, look about us and see the sense.
tIonal newspapers and the scandal
mongering newspaper commanding the
attention of the masses selling in great
numbers and we look again and we see
the decent papers and the clean papers.
the intellectual papers and the con-
structive papers just getting by.
And yet newspapers are after all
cleaner and better than the tastes Of
the average reader. Take New York
as an example. There are - daily
newspapers printed in that city and Of
tnese II but two are distinctly yellow,
distinctly Observation-Disclosures that
make an appeal to the worst and not
the best in human nature. Only two
out Of IL! But, gentlemen, this is the
fearful and disgraceful thing in tina.
situation: The circulations of these
papers combined is as great as that of
any six other newspapers printed in
New York; their combined Calculations
is almost as great as the combined cir
culations Of all other New York news
papers save two.
The civic conscience Of this town is
expressed in its newspapers: show me
the newspapers of town and TIL foil
what that town amounts to in civic
progress and in civic pride. No news
Paper Is in any great sense a ref1ex ~
the man in the editorial chair: but II is
mirror Of the towns people and
what those people want.
Il do not believe that the majority of
men are bad; that people are in favor
OF the worst or even the common in
life. I believe that the majority If
humanity is clean and fine and above
board, desiring the best for themselves
and for society," But that minor mart
has been expressive IN itse1f. =.
shown its hand and welded its
strength while you and men like You
have remained rebellious but in &C.
tive"
And right there is where our civic
conscience should trouble us-we could