ecessary tear as
the cheek of the ruffian--and those who compose the "editorials" for Mr
Hearst's papers have cynically realised this truth. They rant and they
cant and they argue, as though nothing but noble thoughts were permitted
to lodge within the poor brains of their readers. Their favourite gospel
is the gospel of Socialism. They tell the workers that the world is
their inalienable inheritance, that skill and capital are the snares of
the evil one, and that nothing is worth a reward save manual toil. They
pretend for a moment to look with a kindly eye upon the Trusts, because,
when all enterprises and industries are collected into a small compass,
the people will have less trouble in laying hands upon them. In brief,
they teach the supreme duty of plunder with all the _staccato_ eloquence
at their command. For the man whose thrift and energy have helped him
to success they have nothing but contempt. They cannot think of the
criminal without bursting into tears. And, while they lay upon the rich
man the guilty burden of his wealth, they charge the community with
the full responsibility for the convict's misfortune. Such doctrines,
cunningly taught, and read day after day by the degenerate and
unrestrained, can only have one effect, and that effect, no doubt, the
"editorials" of the Yellow Press will some day succeed in producing.

The result is, of course, revolution, and revolution is being carefully
and insidiously prepared after the common fashion. Not a word is left
unsaid that can flatter the criminal or encourage the thriftless. Those
who are too idle to work but not too idle to read the Sunday papers are
told that it will be the fault of their own inaction, not of the Yellow
Press, if they do not some day lay violent hands upon the country's
wealth. And when they are tired of politics the Yellow Editors turn to
popular philosophy or cheap theology for the solace of their public. To
men and women excited by the details of the last murder they discourse
of the existence of God in short, crisp sentences,--and I know not which
is worse, the triviality of the discourse or its inappositeness. They
preface one of their most impassioned exhortations with the words: "If
you read this, you will probably think you have wasted time." Though
this might with propriety stand for the motto of all the columns of all
Mr Hearst's journals, here it is clearly used in the same hope which
inspires the sandwichman to carry on his