Life — May 20, 1897 — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE POLICE FORCE AT GREATER HANKSVILLE, PROUD IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF NEW UNIFORMS, PAY NO ATTENTION TO HIS WARNINGS, A NEW CHAMPION. [¥ the course of am articte, apparently in- tended as a defense of the New Journal- ism, and written for one of its most conspic- uous exponents, Rev. Thomas Dixon voices some opinions pleasingly illustrative of the enlightened freedom from an- cient scruples which distin- guishes some portion of our modern society. ‘All news that is news," he tells us, ‘i fit to print.” Conservative peo- ple have thought that they had good authority for supposing that there were some things of which it was a shame even to think, not to speak of having them served up in elaborate detail, with illus- trations and photographs and lurid com- ments. Evidently, however, St. Paul, never having had the advantage of a course of modern newspapers, cannot be expected to know the proper boundaries of the field of journalistic enterprise. . 2 * 66 SENSIBLE man," Dr. Dixon further tells us, “will buy the newspaper h prints all the news.” This is certainly the view of the two papers which have most conspicuously striven to outvie the Police Gazette and the penny dreadful, but it is rather a new thing to find it advocated by men of Dr. Dixon's stamp. His opinion may be of use to the numerous laymen who have held the untenable idea that this atti- tude is responsible for a large part of the trouble, believing that the majority of the people do not wish an elaborate resumé of all the crimes and scandals of all the country, and holding that if the sensible man who is also a reputable citizen would refuse to buy the paper which prints all the news, such pa- pers would soon disappear, and we should have a journalism which concerned itself only with the news of real importance and inter- est to the general public. WITH THE NATURAL [7 is true that Dr. Dixon indulges in some generalities regarding the desirability of a pure and lofty journalism, but it isa ques- tion whether defending newspapers of an exactly opposite type is the best way of securing an improvement, Pleasing as it is to find a minister rising superior to puritanic scruples concerning the character of the newspaper he will patronize and defend, there are still some who will hold that the reverend gentleman is mistaken, that spectable men do not care to have all the happenings of the day presented for their consideration, that sensible men will buy the paper which makes some show of decency and good taste, and that, on the whole, there are better occupations for the clergy than coming to the defense of papers of such striking enterprise in the pursuit of news that even public institutions hesitate to place them in the hands of their readers. re- RESULT THAT— LIFE’S “PEGASUS” CONTEST. LEASE remember in the event of two or more lists of the ten best short poems being alike, and all of them nearest the combined popular judgment, that the prize will be awarded to the one whose list reaches this office first. It will, therefore, be to your advan- tage to send in your list as early as ble. NATURAL INDIGNATION, ALLER: Are you sure Miss Riche is not in? Matp: Do you doubt her word, sir?