Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-01-13
NEWSPAPER RESPONSIBILITY
By DR.. Frank Crane

~ LIZ Aetl1N olClllC
| The Montreal Star, one of the great news
papers of Canada and the Continent, car
ries at the head of it's editorial columns these
sentences:
Capital is the Labor of the Past"
Labor is the Capital of the Future
Capital and Labor, pulling together Gre
ate the Prosperity of the Present.
This is fine instance of a newspaper
realizing its mission, it's reason for existence,
its public obligation.
For its mission ought to be, not only to
disseminate information, but to do this in
such garb and spirit as to promote public
welfare.
It's reason for existence is not alone to
make money, because there are things no
money could induce it to print. And it's pub
lie obligation is to direct a propaganda Of
sanity, decency and honor unremittingly
against whatever form of political madness
or intellectual rOttenness may be current
And just now, what is the matter with
the world is the spread of that poisonous
Envy, which is masquerading now as Boil
SheV1sm, now as heroic radica1ism and now
as one or another form of Utopianism, seeks
to destroy the civilization which humanity
has been so long upbuilding.
This is not an academic danger; it is no
dilettante vagary which we may shoofly and
pass on.
Since the war, the belyache apostles have
been busy. Everywhere Capital has been as
| sailed as the arch criminal, those who work
hard and save their money have been held
up to scorn as contemplate bourgeois, VIC
| lence has been openly preached as the only
remedy for the evils of the world, and in
| stead of hard work it is organization for loot
| that has been glorified.
This is the real, underlying, psychological
cause of the crime wave. 1t is small won
! der that when the teachings of the parlor
| Bolshevist and the unhinged professor have
filtered down to the slums, the ignorant and
half-baked mind of the workman out of a
| job leaps to the conclusion that the thing
for him to do is to find revolver and black
| jack and murder a ieweler or hold up a
| bank messenger.
The Church, greatest of invisible police,
| is ridiculed
The Courts and the Law are held up to
contempt as capitalistic agents.
| The teaching of thrift and industry has
| been denounced as hypocrisy.
''Why work." asks the revolutionist. "It
will only make you slaves. Use violence.
Refuse to work. Organize some sort of
1 Union"
All such preachment, falling in the rich
soil Of increasing unemployment, has brought
forth it's abundant crop of thugs, robbers
and assassins.
It will do us no good to multiply and in
crease the severity of courts, so long as the
stream of poison flows into the public mind.
! 1t is time, therefore, that newspapers
ceased their ancient drool of party politics
and line up on the new and living issue.
The sturdy mind of the English speaking
peoples is in no danger of being resolved
into the gluey mass of Bolshevism, but there
! is danger that the dregs of the people may
| find their incompetency and envy quickened
into criminal activity by this noxious gospel,
which, chanting the rights of man, proceeds
| to destroy mankind.
| Every newspaper ought to be the pulpit
| of sanity.
1t is reassuring to see that more and more
| of them are.
| Copyright, 1921, by Frank Crane)
1t isn't the ROSTERS early rising that
makes him unpopular; it's his talking
about it-Provdence Tribune.
Intervention in Cuba is a terrible temp
tation, even to some Of those of us who
voted dry.-Columbus Ohio State Journal.
A Chicago burglar was scared away by
a frightful picture. At last, here is legiti-
mate work for the futurists.-Philadelph
North American.
No doubt some of the present-day ban
dts are merely trying to get into Jail so
as to avoid making out income tax re-
turns.-Columbia Is. CO. Record.
Anyway, it is a sweetly solemn thought
that all the members of the present and
next congresses will not serve as long as
Uncle Joe Cannon has.-Houston Post.