Editorial August 31, 1907 Issue

PUBLIC SENTIMENT

Archibald McLellan

It will be seen, from the newspaper editorials which we reprint in this issue of the Sentinel, that the suit of the "next friends" was not one which met with public approval, and the only move in connection with it which has received endorsement was its withdrawal. These editorials, and hundreds more of the same tenor for which we have no room in our columns, indicate that the persecution of a religion and its founder does not meet with the approval of the people of this country, and this is not surprising when we look back upon the struggles for religious liberty which comprise so large a part of the early history of the American people. There is a widespread feeling of satisfaction following the collapse of the suit, and this feeling is closely interwoven with one of condemnation for the newspaper methods which were at the bottom of the entire proceeding.

It is to be hoped that public sentiment has been sufficiently aroused to render impossible any similar violation of private and religious rights, and that some steps will be taken to prevent the further perversion of a legal process which was originally devised for the most beneficent of purposes.

The growing tendency to invoke the law for private ends rather than for the advancement of justice, should be curbed, and as reforms usually have follwed the most flagrant abuses, we believe that some reform in the practice governing "next friends" may be looked for.

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