Now, a man who,
to injure another, will write an anonymous letter, is, in the first
place, a coward, and, in the second place, a villain. Many of these
offensive anonymous letters you see in the bad newspaper have been
found to be _written in the editorial chair_.
The bad newspaper stops not at any political outrage. It would arouse
a revolution, and empty the hearts of a million brave men in the
trenches, rather than not have its own circulation multiply.
What to it are the hard-earned laurels of the soldier or the exalted
reputation of the statesman? Its editors would, if they dared, blow
up the Capitol of the nation if they could only successfully carry off
the frieze of one of the corridors. There are enough falsehoods told
at any one of our autumnal elections to make the "Father of Lies"
disown his monstrous progeny. Now it is the Mayor, then the Governor,
now the Secretary of State, and then the President, until the air is
so full of misrepresentation that truth is hidden from the view, as
beautiful landscapes by the clouds of summer insects blown up from the
marshes.
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