The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1928-01-06
heCherry
" = Where with our
roo Little Hatchet
= We tell the truth
about many things, sometimes pro-
foundly, sometimes hippantl-.
sometimes recklessly. -.

When someone tells us that we
have twenty-five million automobiles
in America we puff and allow that
we have the goldingest old country
that ever was and she's just the last
word in grandeur.
And then when little item comes
over the wire telling us that candy
factory watchman, seeing youngster
sneak out the employees door, home
ward bound, with pilfered box of
candy under his arm, let's go with
gun and plugs the boy in the back
for trying to swipe box of Christ
mas sweets, well, then, we just go
glum and say that we have more
cheap stupidity to the square inch
than any other place on the whole
doggoned globe.
Now we do have the automobiles
and we do have the story about the
boy-both true and both in way tpy-
ical.
AS for the candy factory, few
places pay lower wages, that being
another way of saying that few places
hold human life more cheaply. Why
hesitate about shooting a boy now
and then? Is it so much different
from paying starvation wages?
We are full of inconsistencies, and
frequently full of prunes. A Remus,
acquitted after murder trial on the
ground of insanity, yells that this is
American justice" and it probably
is as near it as anything. The crowd
cheers because Remus doesn't get
bumped off by the state. Thousands
of persons are very happy about Re-
mus.
Similarly thousands weep for Ruth
Snyder and thousands went daffy over
the two rich perverts who escaped the
moose for cutting up Bobby Franks
Capital punishment is hideous
thing, but why do we kid ourselves
SO constantly that we are protesting
against it because of the sacredness
of human life?
Human life is not sacred in America
and when we pretend that it is we
are making fools of ourselves. We de
it merely because each of us likes tC
think he is kindly, good-heartet
sort of an animal. It's lot of apple
sauce and blah.
i The country will not rise up ant
protest about the boy shot in th
back like dog for stealing box O
candy. Not on your life The coun
: try was not thrown into anything
: worse than a momentary shudde
! when six brave men died slow, tor
tured death in the Sd while the nav,
bureaucracy says there was nothing
that could have been done to max
such horrible accidents less likely.
Outside of the labor movement an
: few churches nobody gives whoo
what happens to the thousands of Goa
! miners families who arc goin
through the winter in the wind-swer
nils of Pennsylvania in misery an
munger.
Yet fool Doty comes home froi
e a Foreign Legion escapade and REAP
r hurrahs and bale of cash foc wri
! ing the story of his ignominious az
ventures! The miners are fightin
for life. Doty killed for the sake {
e adventure and then ran away.
q Human life is blown out, snufft
out, washed out, starved out, squee
: ed out, all over America and wi
a cares? We are as likely to idolize-
g and much more likely to heap none
upon--a Remus as a Lindbergh.
- Gutter journalism, of course, shar
heavily in the responsibility for tn
Isl type of mentality. And gutter jou
,e nalism did not, contrary to much opil
ion, pass out with the nineties.
> is still extant-and still highly prof
able.
Gutter journalism lives on and pu
veys the putrid, the vivid and livi
e, the rotten drama and tragedy of h
IF man life-the cheapening in this HI
&c man struggle.
"a We do not hold human life sacre
We are more reckless with it ths
= with anything else in our nation
h possession. Why do we kid ou
i. selves?