a game. I only
say that it would be a stark impossibility in a nation which believed in
telling the truth.

LIMERICKS AND COUNSELS OF PERFECTION

It is customary to remark that modern problems cannot easily be attacked
because they are so complex. In many cases I believe it is really
because they are so simple. Nobody would believe in such simplicity of
scoundrelism even if it were pointed out. People would say that the
truth was a charge of mere melodramatic villainy; forgetting that
nearly all villains really are melodramatic. Thus, for instance, we say
that some good measures are frustrated or some bad officials kept in
power by the press and confusion of public business; whereas very often
the reason is simple healthy human bribery. And thus especially we say
that the Yellow Press is exaggerative, over-emotional, illiterate, and
anarchical, and a hundred other long words; whereas the only objection
to it is that it tells lies. We waste our fine intellects in finding
exquisite phraseology to fit a man, when in a well-ordered society we
ought to be finding handcuffs to fit him.

This criticism of the modern type of righteous indignation must have
come into many people's minds, I think, in reading Dr. Horton's eloquent
expressions of disgust at the "corrupt Press," especially in connection
with the Limerick craze. Upon the Limerick craze itself, I fear Dr.
Horton will not have much effect; such fads perish before one has had
time to kill them. But Dr. Horton's protest may really do good if it
enables us to come to some clear understanding about what is really
wrong with the popular Press, and which means it might be useful and
which permissible to use for its reform. We do not want a censorship of
the Press; but we are long past talking about that. At present it is not
we that silence the Press; it is the Press that silences us. It is not a
case of the Commonwealth settling how much the editors shall say; it is
a case of the editors settling how much the Commonwealth shall know. If
we attack the Press we shall be rebelling, not repressing. But shall we
attack it?

Now it is just here that the chief difficulty occurs. It arises from
the very rarity and rectitude of those minds which commonly inaugurate
such crusades. I have the warmest respect for Dr. Horton's thirst after
righteousness; but it has always seemed to me that his righteousness
would be more effective without his refinement. The curse of the
Nonc