THE LAND OF SECULARISM ONCE MOKE

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 267, 14 June 1878, Page 16

THE LAND OF SECULARISM ONCE MOKE

(Jacob Terry, in the Daily Times) *

So vitiated has the public taste become that men and women deliberately do and say things revolting to morality and religion for the sake of newspaper notoriety. Indeed, not a few of the most serious crimes committed in this country may be traced directly to this cause. It lies at the roots of the more unamiable traits of American character. It influences politics, commerce, the bar and bench, and is the power which absolutely rules the pulpit. Everything is got up for display. Shoddy reigns,' sincerity has no footing; the Press, no doubt, is responsible for much of this ; but then, it must be remembered, that the newspapers of a free country reflect the popular taste. They cater for their constituents ; and when newspapers serve up daily messes of filth and obscenity, ov magnify the doings of criminals and rascals ? as if they were the acts of heroes and public benefactors, be sure the community is not much, above the level of such literature. The American Press undoubtedly does much to make crime popular by its method of narration ; but the American juries treat crime with extreme laxity. ******

The cry of " communism." is absurd ; but that labour is organising, arming, and drilling is a patent fact. The working men of the ' United States have this alternative before them ; to become a proletariat on a level witli Chinese coolies, without homes or family ties, living in filthy barracks, or to compel a repeal of class laws by which the public lands have been stolen, the means of transport and intelligence have passed into the hands of monopolists, the wages of labour are sweated in the interest of usurers, and a protective tariff is sustained for the profit of producers and -loss of consumers. This may mean a social war.