cause they believed, as did the majority of the voters of the
country, that debased currency was wrong both in theory and in
practice. Numerous editors stood by this principle in spite of the
opposition of wealthy owners of the silver mines who likewise
tried to dictate editorial policies. In a few cases, where bankers
did insist that the amount of indebtedness of newspapers to them
should be reduced, on account of business conditions, they were
but doing what they were requiring of all borrowers the
reduction in loans.
A large advertiser in a certain metropolitan daily did with- draw his advertising because the paper supported Bryan in his presidential aspirations, but later, on finding that he was losing business on account of the absence of this advertising, he tried to have it inserted again. The newspaper informed him very plainly in words to the folio whig effect: "You have tried to dictate to this paper through a threat of withdrawal of adver- tising. You need to be taught a lesson. You are now out, and out you stay for one year, that the lesson may be forcibly im- pressed upon your memory." Not until the year was up was he allowed to resume advertising.
PITILESS PUBLICITY
Whether newspapers should give full publicity to crime has been a frequent subject of discussion in periodical literature. No conclusive evidence has ever been brought forth to prove that such accounts increase the amount of crime. On the other hand, only the astigmatic or myopic person fails to see that publicity is a most decided deterrent of crime. E. W. Howe, when editor of The Globe, of Atchison, Kansas, expressed this idea very epi- grammatically, "The wages of sin is publicity"; Ralph Waldo Emerson knew whereof he spoke when he asserted, "Light is the great policeman." Unquestionably, great sorrow is brought to wives, children, and other relatives by the newspaper accounts of the acts of criminals. The duty of the newspaper, however, is plain: it must protect other wives, children, and relatives who will be brought to grief unless all forms of rascality are exposed and perpetrators of crime brought to justice. Pitiless publicity it must often be, but it is never heartless.
