Year: 1870

There is wholesome counsel and
timely reproof, applicable to much the
larger portion of the journalists of the
country, in the resolution passed by
the dozen or fifteen editors of North
ern Indiana, assembled in convention
recently, in which they "depreciate
the practice, so freely INDUCED in by
members Of our profession, of person
alities, false representations, ETC." and
advise the inculcation of courteous
intercourse and a gentlemanly bearing
each toward the other, as we'll as to
all members of the newspaper profess
sion." The ugliest blot on American
journalism, the one which is doing
more thBn all others to corrupt the
popular sense of the amenities proper
between man and man, and to bring
the editorial profession into disrespect,
is that of the almost continual and
unbridled indulgence by journalists of
coarse abuse and personal traduction
of each other. 1t seems next to i'm
possible for the editors of rival papers
TO engage in a controversy upon any
question of moral, political or social
concern, without introducing into the
contest something connected with the
personal character, habits, appear
ance or manners Of each other, and
the low plane to which this sert of
thing often descends would disgrace
even the roughs Of the prize ring and
the bulies of the bar-room. For ma
ny of these vaunted "guides of pub
lie intelligence and leaders of popular
thought" there is no degree of vul-
garity too extreme, either in expires
sion or suggestion, for their use, and
they carry malevolent traduction to
its farthest limit.


And it is by no means the provin-
cial journalists who are chiefly or in
the largest degree guilty of this de-
basement of the editorial Profession
The press of the great cities-the me-
tropOlitan press-is at "the head and
front of the offending" as has recent
ly been fully and most disgrace
fully manifest. We have seen such
papers as the New York Tribune and
Times and the Cincinnati Commercial
and Enquirer, hurling the most vim
dictive vituperation, cOuched IN the
coarse and most insulting terms, and
displayed in the most prominent posi-
tion for the perusal of their readers,
against their respective editOrs-facts
asserted and representations made,
which, if true, should cOnsign these
men to the everlasting contempt and
lOathing of mankind. When papers
of this class, controlled by men who
pass for gentlemen, and who are GER
tainly men of culture and liberal at
tainments, do this thing, it is not as
tOnishing that the country papers,
which for the most part are merely
tenders to, and take their cue chiefly
from the city press, should be found
wallOWing in the same filthy and
nauseating mire. Yet there is a well
come assurance in the expression OF
the little cOterie of editors of Indiana
that this distemper has somewhere run
its course, and we may at least hope
that the work of reform, albeit so
humbly begun, may grow vigorously
until it has drawn into its embrace
the whole profession, and the princi-
pie is established that the journalist,
in order to be recognized, must be a
gentleman, and that his claim to this
distinction, whatever his merit other
wise, will be made to rest mainly
upon the degree of courtesy and re-
spectful consideration he shows to-
ward his brethren in the profession


Printing Gazette.