The next day he printed the interviews--a collection of curiosities in
utopianism, cant, ignorant fanaticism, provincialism, hypocrisy. These
appeared strictly as news; for the cardinal principle of Howard's theory of
a newspaper was that it had no right to intrude its own views into its
news-columns. On the editorial page he riddled the interviews. By adroit
quotations, by contrasting one with another, he showed, or rather made the
so-called reformers themselves show, that where they were sincere they were
in the main silly, and where they were plausible they were in the main
insincere; that every man of them had his own pet scheme for the salvation
of wicked New York; and that they could not possibly accomplish anything
more valuable than leading the people on the familiar, aimless,
demoralizing excursion through the slums.
On the following day he frankly laughed at them as a lot of impracticables
who either did not know the patent facts of city life or refused to admit
those facts. And he turned his attention to the real problem, a respectable
administration for the city--a practical end which could easily be
accomplished by practical action. From day to day he kept this up,
publishing a splendid series of articles, humorous, witty, satirical,
eloquent, bold, with a dominant strain of sincerity and plain common sense.
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