The Crime of Caste in Our CountryDavenport, Benjamin Rush
History
The Crime of Caste in Our Country
Davenport, Benjamin Rush
Social problems; United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918
Had a Johnstown flood, a Charleston earthquake, a war with Chili, or a
Homestead strike occurred on November 8, 1892, instead of an election,
those Napoleons of journalism, James Gordon Bennett, of the New York
_Herald_, Joseph Pulitzer, of the New York _World_, and Whitelaw
Reid, of the _Tribune_, would have had a score of representatives on
the scene at once, without thought of expense; would have had every
detail in its most minute particular investigated, and reproduced
every statement, embellished by the pencils of a host of artists,
utterly regardless of expense, keeping, as these magnificent journals
ever have, good faith with the public and their readers, making
lasting monuments of their wonderful papers for coming generations of
journalists to gaze upon.
But a revolution occurred on November 8, 1892, a revolution of the
American people, so overwhelming, so decisive, and so pronounced
as to absolutely stupefy even the genius of the press. Instead of
corps of reporters, artists, special correspondents, speeding over
the land to ascertain the cause--not the result; the cause, the
origin,--of this stupendous surprise, all the great journals of the
country, having each nailed to its flag-staff some theory or text
utterly inconsistent with the result, utterly disproportioned to the
overwhelming revolution, that they have sought by vain endeavor to make
an overwhelming result compatible with and agreeable to some one part
or portion of the cause thereof.
To loudly proclaim, as did the New York _Sun_, that an exhibition of
the will of the people, so pronounced as that of November the 8th,
was occasioned by the Force Bill, is as utterly unreasonable as to
ascribe the magnificent volume within the banks of the Mississippi to
some little trickling rivulet flowing from the plains of Nebraska.
To say, with the _Tribune_, that the grand result pronounced in the
mighty voice of the people was produced by the misunderstanding of
the McKinley Bill, is as groundless as to ascribe the echoing thunder
tones of heaven to the swelling throat of a canary bird. To herald
over the land, “Pauper emigration did it,” with the New York _Herald_,
is about as pregnant with truth as would be the assumption that the
foundation and everlasting strength of Christianity has for its basis
the misguided vaporings of a negro preacher in Richmond, who proclaims,
“The sun do move.” To announce, as did the _World_, that “Tariff reform
and WE, the Democrats, achieved this victory,” is entitled to as much
respect as would be given the utterances of a drummer boy of the
Federal Army at Gettysburg.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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