San Francisco Chronicle - Sunday, April 7, 1895

THE VALUE OF PUBLICITY.

The English press is receiving in certain quarters undeserved censure for the publicity it has given to the criminal libel brought by Oscar Wilde against the Marquis of Queensberry, which has resulted in the complete discomfiture of the prosecutor, and has been followed by his arrest.

It is time, in the name of good morals as well as of common sense, to enter a protest against that mawkish and squeamish sentimentality which seemingly advocates the idea that a newspaper must confine itself to such things as will not bring the blush to the cheek of the typical schoolgirl. In the present case the result of the libel trial has been to strip the mask of hypocrisy and duplicity from the features of a man who has posed for years as the chief apostle of estheticism, and to show him in his true colours as a moral leper, a thing so vile and hideous that no decent man or woman could venture to admit acquaintance with him, much less friendship or intimacy.

How is a consummation so much desired to be attained except through the instrumentality of the public press? The vices of Imperial Rome are known to moderns through the satires of Juvenal and the epigrams of Martial, but those satires and epigrams, when they were written, had such a limited circulation as to exercise no shred of influence upon public opinion. Look at the difference which exists today. The virtual conviction of Oscar Wilde, made known to the public through the London press, has found an immediate response in the withdrawal of two of his plays and the shutting out forever of any literary work he may attempt. How could this have come about had the English press maintained that reticence which some people seem to think the very acme of journalism?

We may differ with the London press as to questions of good taste, but if we are honest with ourselves we cannot deny that the pillorying of such a man as Oscar Wilde is a sign of a healthy and viral moral sentiment in the community. There are times when it is necessary to call a spade a spade, even though the mention of the implement may bring a blush to an occasional cheek, and it is infinitely better for the morals of the civilized world that such a vile and bestial creature as Oscar Wilde should be exposed to the scorn of mankind than that he should be allowed to go along unmolested, sowing the seeds of moral degeneracy and impurity, as he has done in his books and plays, to the infinite harm and ruin of the very persons who need protection, the young of both sexes. We can better afford to blush at the overfrank disclosures made by the London press than we can to weep bitter tears over the shame and degradation of those near and dear to us who might have been poisoned morally by Oscar Wilde had not the recent exposure been made.