The following dialogue I have held a hundred times: 'Is
it not a very disgraceful circumstance that such a man as So-and-so
should be acquiring a large property by the most infamous and odious
means, and notwithstanding all the crimes of which he has been
guilty, should be tolerated and abetted by your citizens? He is a
public nuisance, is he not?' 'Yes, sir.' 'A convicted liar?'
'Yes, sir.' 'He has been kicked, and cuffed, and caned?' 'Yes,
sir.' 'And he is utterly dishonourable, debased, and profligate?'
'Yes, sir.' 'In the name of wonder, then, what is his merit?'
'Well, sir, he is a smart man.'
"But the foul growth of America has a more tangled root than this;
and it strikes its fibres, deep in its licentious Press.
"Schools may he erected, East, West, North, and South; pupils be
taught, and masters reared, by scores upon scores of thousands;
colleges may thrive, churches may be crammed, temperance may be
diffused, and advancing knowledge in all other forms walk through
the land with giant strides; but while the newspaper press of
America is in, or near, its present abject state, high moral
improvement in that country is hopeless. Year by year, it must and
will go back; year by year, the tone of public opinion must sink
lower down; year by year, the Congress and the Senate must become of
less account before all decent men; and year by year, the memory of
the Great Fathers of the Revolution must be outraged more and more,
in the bad life of their degenerate child.
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