“Gone,” exclaims a former German Minister of State,—“gone is the reign of noble ideas; the power of the love of country and of freedom; the worth and honor of the national character! Money alone is loved, and all means by which it is acquired seem natural and praiseworthy.” The very foundations of the moral order are attacked by this vile press. The events of 1866 and 1870 are now spoken of as “an historical phenomenon, which cannot be judged by the current notions of morality, but in accordance with which these moral principles themselves must be widened and corrected.” This is the low and degrading philosophy to which the idolatry of success fatally leads.
But, for the honor of journalism, a portion of the German press has remained closed against the insidious power of the “Reptile-fund.” No Catholic newspaper has lent itself even covertly to this conspiracy against truth and liberty; and it must be admitted, too, that the socialistic journals have refused the government bribes; their circulation, however, which is not large, is confined almost exclusively to the laboring classes, and their influence is but little felt. The
power of the Catholic press in Germany is of recent growth. In the early part of the present century the only periodical of any weight devoted to the defence of the interests of the church in Germany was the Theologische Quartalschrift, founded in 1819 as the organ of the Tübingen professors. Twenty years later Joseph Görres established in Munich the Historisch-politischen Blätter, which soon caused the influence of his powerful mind to be felt throughout the fatherland, and which, under the editorial management of the historian Jörg, is still to-day one of the ablest reviews in Germany. The censorship of the press which, prior to the revolution of 1848, was maintained in all the German governments, was exercised in a way that rendered Catholic journalism impossible. No sooner, however, had the Parliament of Frankfort proclaimed the liberty of the press than the Catholics hastened to take advantage of it by creating newspapers to advocate their religious interests. The bishops and priests, in obedience to the earnest exhortations of Pius IX., threw themselves into the work with a will; the people followed their example; press-unions were formed and a large number of Catholic newspapers sprang into life. Bismarck’s persecution of the church gave yet greater force to this movement and increased both the number and the circulation of Catholic journals. In the new German Empire there are to-day two hundred and thirty newspapers devoted to the interests of the church. The Augsburger Wochenblatt has a subscription list of thirty-two thousand; the Mainzer Volksblatt, one of thirty thousand. Twelve thousand copies of the Germania (in Berlin) are
sold daily, and many other Catholic journals have a circulation of from five to ten thousand copies. As this powerful Catholic press could not be bought, nothing remained to be done but to silence it.
At the close of the year 1872 all Prussian journals were warned, under pain of confiscation, not to publish the Christmas Allocution of Pope Pius IX. Mallinckrodt, the vigilant Catholic leader, raised his voice in protest against this attempt upon the liberty of the press; but the Reichstag was silent, and the newspapers which had not heeded the warning were seized. The Mainzer Journal was brought into court for having presumed to print an open letter to the emperor, in which was found the following sentence: “The emperor is bound by the laws of the moral order just like the least of his subjects.” The government procurator (Schön, in Mainz, on the 19th of December, 1873) declared that the emperor is a “sanctified” person, whose majesty is “above the laws of the state,” and the bare address “to the emperor” is a punishable offence. For republishing this open letter the editors of the Kölner Volkszeitung and the Mühlheimer Anzeiger were condemned to prison for two months. Siegbert, the managing editor of the Deutscher Reichszeitung (Catholic), was called upon to give the name of the writer of a certain article which he had published; and upon his declaration that this would be a breach of honor he was thrown into prison.
On the 1st of July, 1874, a new law came into force, by which still further restrictions were placed upon the liberty of the press; and on the 15th of the same month the Minister of Justice enjoined upon the government officials to keep sharp
watch upon the newspapers. Within six months from this date the Germania newspaper in Berlin had been condemned thirty-nine times; and there were besides twenty-four untried charges against it in court. In January, February, March, and April, 1875—four months—one hundred and thirty-six editors were condemned either to prison or to pay a fine. The most of these were Catholics, though some of them belonged to the democratic and socialistic press. It is not necessary to say that the “press-reptiles” were not represented among them. These editors were thrust into the cells of common criminals, were refused books and writing material, and were forced to live upon “prison fare,” which many found so unpalatable that they could eat nothing but rye-bread.
The reptile-press alone is tolerated. If a man wishes to be honest, and has, notwithstanding, no desire to go to jail, the most unwise thing which he could do would be to become a journalist in the new German Empire. To refuse to eat of the “Reptile-fund” is to condemn one’s self to Bismarck’s “prison fare” of beans and cold water.
To poison the wells is not held to be lawful, even in war; but to taint the fountain-sources of knowledge, and to corrupt the channels through which alone the public receives its general information, is not thought to be unworthy of a great hero, if we may judge from the Prussian chancellor’s popularity with Englishmen and Americans, which is not diminished even by his determined efforts to crush all who refuse to sell their souls or renounce their manhood.
“The only man,” said Carlyle of Bismarck—“the only man appointed by God to be his vicegerent here