The Editor Who Sold His Paper to a Brothel Keeper

Mr. Editor—It supports a newspaper! It poisons what should be a river of pure truth and good for the earth's refreshing—the river of the world's printed thoughts—with the poison of its venom. The classic inebriate who has sacrificed to his unholy, know'd appetites all of manhood but the fitful recollections of an early education, gathers up this remnant of a squandered patrimony and sells it to the keeper of a squat brothel to defend his nefarious traffic.

What can he said for that man who in the full possession of his faculties... with wife and children claiming his protection and influence from every evil which it is in his power to avert, who for a palm share in the wages of prostitution given his aid and influence to perpetuate and entail upon his successors a moral pestilence more to be dreaded than plague or cholera?

What of that newspaper publisher, who in contempt of the moral sentiment... selects that day alone for printing and circulating in Christian homes, articles written for pay in defense of the manner in which the life of one of our citizens is conducted—a citizen, a moral pariah, outlawed to all law, human and divine; whose affairs are the affairs of a house of prostitution, the most notorious, degraded and law-defying that ever disgraced a civilized community—characterizing as "chauvinism," and "hysteria," a protest against this sink of pollution...

What of that convention of a party composed largely of moral Christian men, which unanimously endorsed the editor of that newspaper—the recognized organ and medium of communion with the public and advertiser of its licentious acts, of a house of prostitution—as a suitable person to assist in making laws for the government of the people and for the protection of public morals?

Has the brave old party... come to this, that its necessities demand a compromising policy with keepers of brothels and professional gamblers? Think you the women, were they entrusted with the sacred suffrage, would thus barter it for party success?

You, Mr. Editor, have declared your independence of party dictation; how could you have done less and maintain all your self-respect? God grant that many others will follow your example. Then, and not till then, can public morality successfully combat lawlessness and public profligacy at the polls.

But women must not protest, must not petition, but must drop their veils and pass on when they are jostled upon the public walks by public prostitutes; they must exhibit no consciousness when they are brought in contact with the keeper of a spurious brothel... They must stand idly by and make no sign, when under their very eyes and within their hearing are the sights and sounds of revelry calculated to lure and attract their unthinking boys to a den of perdition which destroys both body and soul. Hush! your father, your husband, or your brother is a candidate for office. The party is in danger!