Journalism and Cranks

     Eminent authorities on insanity take the same view of the harmful influence of sensational newspaper accounts of crime that ex-Governor Hamilton, of Illinois, took in the following utterance in Chicago recently: “The tendency is to excite the public [mind?] and present thieves, highwaymen and bandits as heroes, and many boys and weak-minded men are influenced to disrespect law and frown upon decency.” Much the same thing is to be said of exaggerated accounts of the efforts made by cranks from time to time to get at the president at the White House or when he is traveling. The invariable effect is to set other cranks in motion, excite their diseased imaginations into unusual activity, and start them for Washington or any other point at which they can create a scene. There are too many cranks ready to be “set on fire” by the words of a philosophic anarchist, as the words of Emma Goldman set Czolgosz on fire. The newspapers seldom preach anarchy whatever else they may do to stimulate cranks to activity.