The Comic Supplement as an Evil Educator—Poisoning Young Minds in American Homes—The Polluting Cause Must Produce Its Degenerating Effects
By Mary Alice Hare Loper, M. S.
It is truly shocking to hear on every hand the cheap, slang-laden vocabulary of the average child of to-day, and to see the widespread filial disobedience, which are but outward revelations of the inner self. These manifestations are unmistakable evidence that the mental, moral, and spiritual trend of the human family at the present time is downward; and heroic efforts are required to stem the tide of evil, and thus make a real success of life. Yet this very state of things is an indisputable proof of the inspiration of the Bible, and of the fact that we are very near the end of all earthly affairs.
These Conditions Were Foretold
The great apostle to the gentiles was permitted to view through the prophetic telescope the general condition of humanity just preceding the close of earth’s history; and in his letters, especially those to Timothy, he gives a graphic description of the lamentable condition of the human family at this time. In the third chapter of 2 Timothy are these startling words: “In the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” And Paul assures us that erring humanity will “wax worse and worse” until the curtain falls on the very last act in the great drama of sin.
The Degrading Sunday Supplement
In these days of business rush, there are very many harmful amusements and pastimes, one of which is the red-green-yellow-black ink-bespattered comic supplement to the Sunday newspaper, which has become a regular weekly visitor in American homes, and which is leaving its deadly impress upon the plastic minds of the children of all classes of society. “By beholding we become changed.” By constant companionship with evil, we gradually learn to look upon sin with less disfavor. Pope truthfully says:
“Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”
In a paper on “The Comic Sunday Supplement,” by Mary Garvin Pedrick, read before the Pennsylvania Federation of Women’s Clubs, in session in Philadelphia, and published in Good Housekeeping Magazine, I find these words:
“While adults read the news of the world, the political situation in England or India, the art news of Paris or Berlin, the children are engrossed with the mishaps of Happy Hooligan, Smarty, Gaston, or the ‘demoniacal ingenuity of the Katzenjammer kids.’
“We pride ourselves upon our national sense of humor, and we are throttling it as effectually as may be. As one magazine editor points out: ‘Americans have suffered many stupid things to go on, but nothing must seem to a foreigner so at variance with American sagacity and good sense as the cutting down of our forests to make wood pulp for the vulgarization of the children of our country. We are exchanging our noble woodlands for cheap and tawdry sheets with no redeeming feature of wit, humor, good sense, or wholesome entertainment.’”
Thousands of Children Eagerly Watching
Thousands of children have learned to watch for the weekly visit of the comic supplement, with as much enthusiasm as their parents await the coming of dinner guests. And as soon as this travesty on art and decent literature looms up before them, they are lost to everything else.
“Children should learn to turn to the good
as flowers to the sunlight.”
The above article says further:
“Do you wonder, then, where boys acquire the spirit of lawlessness and irreverence, or how it is possible for the average girl to possess so precocious a mind and so extensive a slang vocabulary? We give it to them every Sunday. Here is a sample of one page chosen at random: ‘Soak him one for me—Cut it out—Rats! Get the hook—Right O—O, tell it to Sweeney.—Smoke up—You ain’t loco furioso, are you? I love my tamale, but O, you smelt!’”
Training for Coarseness and Brutality
The child who becomes addicted to the use of printed poisons is as truly a slave as is the cocaine or morphine fiend; and the evil results cannot be overestimated. The weekly lessons in disobedience to parents, disrespect to the aged, prevarication, uncouthness, trickery, vulgarity, ill manners, coarse romance, brutality, revenge, etc., gradually transform the life, stealing away the beauty and sweetness of character which the great Creator intended should be cultivated. Thus children come to look upon the little courtesies of life as nonessential, and to regard themselves as of great importance.
The child whose ideal is found in the comic supplement, is not making progress in the right direction. By absorbing the contents of one such demoralizing paper each week, he is taking into his moral system more poison than all the efforts of the Sabbath school can counteract. As surely as alcohol destroys the taste for wholesome drinks, so surely the reading of trashy literature destroys the taste for printed feasts of real worth.
The reading of bad literature is one of the worst evils of which the rising generation are guilty. This habit followed to its limit will crush out every high aspiration. It will rob the soul of every virtue. It will weaken the mind and debilitate the body. It will make of earth a hell, and will blot out the last hope of heaven. The comic supplement in the morning paves the way for the immoral picture show at night; and the child reared in such a crime-breeding atmosphere would require a wonderful miracle to transform his after life into one of noble manhood and real service to humanity.
A Disgrace to Our Mother Tongue
Children should learn to turn to the good as flowers to the sunlight. All good comes from the Sun of Righteousness, and the sweetest flowers of earth should cultivate the habit of living in His light. But printed trash is a veil that hides the heavenly rays, and leaves the child to grope about in darkness. The vulgar slang that is constantly taught by the “funny paper,” and as constantly appropriated by the boys and girls of America, is a disgrace to our cherished mother tongue. And it is a shame to permit mere babies to become familiar with a distorted vernacular, and with the modern “picture writing” from which they learn to act out the sickly scenes depicted.
To gain a good knowledge of English, at best requires careful thought and study for a series of years; and just this is necessary to the highest success of the American citizen in any vocation in life. Why render the task all but hopeless by learning in childhood that which must be abandoned before one can acquire pure diction?
Ridiculing the Bible
The comic supplement does much harm in counteracting the good influence of the Bible. Noah’s ark and the awful scenes of the Flood have been pictured most absurdly in the juvenile sheet. How can a child dwell upon a hideous travesty of the worst calamity that ever overtook this sinful world, and not receive impressions that rob the Bible account of its sacred meaning? When a child has learned to make fun of Bible stories,—stories which mean salvation to human souls,—he has taken a long step in the wrong direction.
We Need All Our Reverence
No one can afford to look at pictures or to read stories that hold the Bible in derision. One needs all the reverence he has,150and all he can acquire. Nothing should be allowed to mar the human clay, and thus prevent its being fashioned into a vessel of honor such as the great Creator intended. The child who loves to revel in the demoralizing scenes of injurious literature, does not love to read his Bible. He does not love to learn his Sabbath school lesson. In fact, going to the house of prayer has become an irksome task. He seems to have forgotten his responsibility to God and his obligations to humanity.
Is it not about time for parents to remove from the literary firmament of their homes the darkening veil in the form of the comic Sunday supplement, and permit only the glorious sunlight of wholesome literature to shine upon the childhood of America?
