APPETITE FOR SLANDER

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 17, 1876

APPETITE FOR SLANDER.

Our recollection of former Presidential contests furnishes no parallel to the present intense desire to blacken the character of public men, especially of candidates for the highest office.

Happy the man whose obscurity is his protection in this hunt for scandal! But it is a sad thing for the country and the times on which we are falling, that the public mind has become so debauched that it eagerly craves the grossest charges of wrong, and gloats over the smutching of reputations. If this were the result of revived public virtue, jealous of the rights and honor of the nation, we might regard it as a good sign, and rejoice in its development. But the eagerness with which these scandals are seized upon, and the evident desire to have them so, disclose a sentiment as corrupt as the scandals themselves would be if true.

And it is a curious fact that the political party papers are not content with vilifying candidates of the other party, but in their eagerness to destroy the particular man whom they regard as the conspicuous rival of their own favorite, they prey upon the character of leaders of their own party as freely as upon the candidates of the other.

All this is evident to the world, and needs no illustration. But it is to be deplored, while it shows that to be a candidate for public office in our day is quite as much as any man's reputation is worth.

We have seen something of the same spirit in the church. In ecclesiastical bodies,—not of one denomination only,—there is a spirit of suspicion of those in places of power and trust, an eagerness to impute wrong to those who have burdens to bear and great responsibilities. The charity that hopeth all things is the highest Christian virtue, and there is plenty of room for its exercise in the church as well as in the state.—Sel.