How Jesus Would Edit A Daily Paper
How fortunate for us it is that the Rev. Sheldon has no legal power to enforce his ideas as to “what Jesus would do”! He has been giving the world a sample of a daily paper run as Jesus would have conducted it – according to his idea – and the public was not especially startled with its holiness or overpowered by its grandeur. If one knew that it represented Christ’s ideal, one must regret that the Nazarene had so little literary ability. But it was not claimed that Jesus would be an up-to-date divinity, up in twentieth century journalistic devices and methods; the Jesus in Sheldon’s mind was probably the old fashioned, two thousand years ago personage who had little notion of latter day journalism, and modern literature.
But Sheldon has not lived up to the character of the old Jesus as portrayed in the four gospels and the acts of the apostles. That personage was very unconventional, and observed few of the recognized standards of morals of that day. He had no home, but wandered like any tramp from one part of the country to another. He was bare-footed and poorly dressed, did not go regularly to church; and he was not thrifty and saving. He mingled with low people, he stole roasting ears on Sunday and probably built a fire and roasted them. More than all, he severely condemned the rich, he called them thieves and robbers; and he threatened them with all sorts of misfortunes; he thrashed the money brokers and threw away their money, and at last by his incendiary talk and radical and unconventional actions got himself arrested and finally put to death by the “law and order” element, just as such a person might in these days. Now, what is there in this kind of life and character that makes Sheldon think he would run a dull, methodical newspaper which did not give the news, that would eliminate all the petty, shady advertisements and incidents that might contaminate the minds of his readers (ignorance being considered an insurance against corruption), that contained not one word of condemnation of the methods by which pious millionaires pile up their wealth, not one word against the conventional and legal means of robbing the laborer of the fruits of his toil, which filled up one day’s number out of the week with prosy, orthodox dissertations and leaves out a Sunday edition altogether? Certainly the Jesus I was acquainted with in my Sunday school days wouldn’t have dreamed of such a thing.
Now, if I were to run a newspaper as Jesus would have run it, it would be a very different affair. I would have to consider that Jesus had kept up with the times, and was in line with all the modern journalists, knew what he was about, and how to secure “scoops.” He would have the latest and best of everything. He would print all the scientific discoveries, surmises, speculations and theories; he would give his readers the benefit of every new philosophy, theory and doctrine promulgated that they might judge for themselves what they would believe. He would expose with merciless hand the schemes of our Rockefellers, our Wanamakers and our Vanderbilts; he would urge upon the people the necessity of abolishing the present, monopolistic, authoritative, robbing system and of instituting a brotherhood in which all should have an equal chance, all possess equal freedom. He would plead the cause of the criminals who had been given no chance to be men and women. He would print letters from the prostitutes whenever they had been “pulled,” that the public might hear who else was to blame. He would allow Tom, Dick and Harry, of the tramp fraternity to tell their stories in his columns; he would illustrate his pages with pictures of sweatshops and underground mines, of Wardner “bullpens,” of white soldiers ravaging the country of their darkskinned fellow men fighting for their liberties. He would give daily announcements of Anarchist meetings, and radical reading rooms, and of places where radical comrades could be found. And no wrong, no helpless victim, no bondage, but he would have ferreted out and shown up in its true light. And he would engage the most eloquent writers in the country to do this work.
Now, no doubt there would go up from the people a greater howl than we unconventional people are likely to make over Sheldon’s sample of a “Christian newspaper.” But I have as good a right to suppose what Jesus would do with a daily paper as Sheldon has, and as neither can enforce our ideas, we are not likely to create a revolution in either direction. But how many Christians would like to thrust Sheldon’s dull, pious, commonplace, conception of a “newspaper” upon the public if they could? Security from the infliction lies in the fact that dogmatism cannot wield the power it once did.
Lizzie M. Holmes,
Denver, Colo., 3163 W. 38th Ave.
Free Society, No 260, April 1, 1900. https://historicalseditions.noblogs.org/files/2023/04/Free-Society_6-20_1-April-1900.pdf
Note
Charles M. Sheldon was a Christian Socialist. ‘In March, 1900, Frederick O. Popenoe, editor and owner of The Topeka Daily Capital, offered Sheldon complete control over the paper for a week. Sheldon, during that week, tried to publish the paper as he thought Jesus would. Circulation rose from 15,000 daily copies to well over 350,000. Sheldon during that week refused to print “hard” news or ads for tobacco, alcohol or patent medicines. He listed every person, including the janitor, in the editorial column except for Popenoe who had angered Sheldon by hiring an agent to advertise the special editions.’ https://www.kansashistory.gov/p/charles-monroe-sheldon-central-congregational-church-collection/14115