I
recall the surprise and indignation of a University professor who
had consented to speak at a meeting arranged in the Board rooms,
when next morning his nonpartisan and careful disquisition had
been twisted into the most arrant uplift nonsense and so
connected with a fake newspaper report of a trial marriage
address delivered, not by himself, but by a colleague, that a
leading clergyman of the city, having read the newspaper account,
felt impelled to preach a sermon, calling upon all decent people
to rally against the doctrines which were being taught to the
children by an immoral School Board. As the bewildered professor
had lectured in response to my invitation, I endeavored to find
the animus of the complication, but neither from editor in chief
nor from the reporter could I discover anything more sinister
than that the public expected a good story out of these School
Board "talk fests," and that any man who even momentarily allied
himself with a radical administration must expect to be ridiculed
by those papers which considered the traction policy of the
administration both foolish and dangerous.
As I myself was treated with uniform courtesy by the leading
papers, I may perhaps here record my discouragement over this
complicated difficulty of open discussion, for democratic
government is founded upon the assumption that differing policies
shall be freely discussed and that each party shall have an
opportunity for at least a partisan presentation of its
contentions.
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