The Profits of Religion, Fifth EditionSinclair, Upton
Religion
The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition
Sinclair, Upton
Christianity -- Controversial literature
Also, why does the magazine refuse to give its readers a chance to
judge its conduct? Why is it that a search of its columns reveals no
mention of the revelations concerning Mr. Baxter--not even any mention
of the $400,000 slush fund of its paragon of transportation virtues? I
asked that question in my letter, and the president of the "Outlook"
Company for some reason failed to notice it. I wrote a second time,
courteously reminding him of the omission; and also of another,
equally significant--he had not informed me whether any of the editors
of the "Outlook", or the officers or directors of the Company, were
stockholders in the New Haven. His final reply was that the questions
seem to him "wholly unimportant"; he does not know whether the
"Outlook" published anything about the Baxter revelations, nor does he
know whether any of the editors or officers or directors of the
"Outlook" Company are or ever have been stockholders of the New York,
New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company. The fact "would not in the
slightest degree affect either favorably or unfavorably our editorial
treatment of that corporation." Caesar's wife, it appears is above
suspicion--even when she is caught in a brothel!
#Clerical Camouflage#
I have seen a photograph from "Somewhere in France", showing a wayside
shrine with a statue of the Virgin Mary, innocent and loving, with her
babe in her arms. If you were a hostile aviator, you might sail over
and take pictures to your heart's content, and you would see nothing
but a saintly image; you would have to be on the enemy's side, and
behind the lines, to make the discovery that under the image had been
dug a hole for a machine-gun. When I saw that picture, I thought to
myself--#there# is capitalist Religion!
You see, if cannon and machine-guns are out in the open, they are
almost instantly spotted and put out of action; and so with magazines
like "Leslie's Weekly", or "Munsey's", or the "North American Review",
which are frankly and wholly in the interest of Big Business. If an
editor wishes really to be effective in holding back progress, he must
protect himself with a camouflage of piety and philanthropy, he must
have at his tongue's end the phrases of brotherhood and justice, he
must be liberal and progressive, going a certain cautious distance
with the reformers, indulging in carefully measured fair play--giving
a dime with one hand, while taking back a dollar with the other!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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