Victory out of Ruin

by Norman Maclean

IV

And this same tyrant blinds us to the goal to which we are hastening. The last great proof of the power of custom is that when nations and empires were perishing they never knew they were perishing. Men were so accustomed to the riches and greatness and security of the Roman empire, that even when it was tottering to its fall they never realised that it was doomed. All nations have gone the one road. They have abolished God or the gods! They have cast duty to the winds; they have given themselves to Mammon and to pleasure; and they perished—but they never knew that the world that seemed to them so secure was passing away. And unless there comes a change—a mighty gale from Heaven—then this world we know must perish. Custom alone blinds us to the fact, plain to the open eye. Scotland cannot feed her people but for a few weeks in the year. For the rest they must be fed by the food brought from overseas by the fruits of our industries. If these industries fail ... we perish. The Clyde will no longer hum with the throbbing engines or great ships come with food.... And every strike, every stoppage of labour, is but a step towards the abyss.... But probably that is what God means. He makes the wrath of men to praise Him—He will use hunger as the instrument wherewith to scatter the great Scottish race broadcast over the world, to people the mighty plains of Canada and the wastes of Australasia. A great silence will fall over the plain of central Scotland. The most hideous of all the workings of man will be beautified when the lichen grows over the crumbling ruins. The mavis will sing in the thorn-tree, dewy with fragrance, where Motherwell now stands ... or Anderston. That may be the hidden purpose of our follies and our crimes. This, at least, is sure, that if we cannot shake ourselves loose from the grip of custom—custom will be our destruction.

CHAPTER V

THE LAST DELIVERANCE

Every great social advance made by men in the past has been made under the pressure of public opinion. That public opinion was created by a free and an unfettered Press. The grim fact that we are now faced with is that the day of the free Press is over. Syndicates of capitalists control the Press of the country, and newspapers whose circulation approaches a couple of millions create the opinion their owners desire. The duty of the newspaper is to record facts, and communicate to the people the correct data on which public opinion can be based. If the Press purposely suppresses what is true, lends itself to the colouring of the records so that the false seems to be the true and the true false, then it becomes the greatest public peril. A generation that is doped with doctored news can scarcely arrive at the truth. The newspapers are supplied free by the bureaux of the interested with news that serve their purpose. Thus it comes that the machinery for creating public opinion is largely in the hands of those whose purpose is that public opinion shall not destroy or lessen their profits. There are noble exceptions; but, taking it as a whole, the syndicated Press of this country is no longer a mirror of the truth.

I

In the United States of America and in Canada there are one hundred and twenty millions who speak our language, whose religion is also ours, who are the most intelligent and hard-headed people on the face of the earth, yet if one were to believe what the Press of this country says, one would be driven to the conclusion that they are poor foolish idealists who have said farewell to their senses. And that because the Press serves the public with doctored news. One day we are told how a hundred thousand New Yorkers are to march in procession through the streets demanding the return of their alcoholic drinks. The columns are full of the preparations for the greatest uprising of the oppressed and parched citizens. The great day comes and the procession is a fiasco. But the syndicated Press omit to record that only a miserable handful paraded the streets, the offscourings of the city's purlieus, amid the derision of the onlookers. We are later informed under great headlines that the American Medical Association or some such society has called for the annulling of the Prohibition Law. We feel that the climate is bound to become wet again, for the doctors demand it. But we soon learn that this particular association of doctors is a mere fragment of a noble profession—a fragment separate from the American Association which corresponds to the British Medical Association. But the syndicated Press does not record that fact. The Press that distorts events after that manner can only flourish among a generation that desires not the truth.

II

There is nothing more to be desired than that the people of Great Britain should acquaint themselves with the facts regarding the greatest social advance ever made by humanity in a generation. Can it be the case that the millions of America committed an act of social folly when they outlawed the liquor traffic and closed the saloons, and that, awakening from their dream, they are to restore the traffic in alcohol and the saloon once more? That is the impression that a spoon-fed Press seeks to create. Can it be true?