" Another
Western paper, in analyzing the causes of the position taken by the
leading New York papers on Beecher's side, ascribed it to the social
relations of the editors with him, believing that they met him
frequently at dinners and breakfasts, and found him a jovial
companion. All this would be laughable enough if it did not show the
amount of covert peril--peril against which no precautions can be
taken--to which every prominent man's character is exposed. The
moment he gets into a scrape of any kind he finds a host of persons
whose enmity he never suspected clamoring to have him thrown to the
beasts "on general grounds"--that is, in virtue of certain tests
adopted by themselves, judged by which, apart from the facts of any
particular accusation, a man of his kind is unquestionably a bad
fellow. The accusation, in short, furnishes the occasion for
destroying him, not necessarily the reason for it.
In Europe there are already abundant signs that the scandal will be
considered a symptomatic phenomenon--that is, a phenomenon
illustrative of the moral condition of American society generally;
for it must not be overlooked that, putting aside altogether the
question of Beecher's guilt or innocence, the "statements" furnish
sociological revelations of a most singular and instructive kind.
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