Source: Editorial, "Not Dangerous," Nebraska State Journal, June 20, 1894, p. 4.
Summary: In this editorial, the Nebraska State Journal defends itself against criticism from readers (and perhaps other newspapers) that it did not denounce Professor Herron’s commencement address strongly enough. In a rather sarcastic tone, the Journal asserts that Herron’s remarks do not represent a threat, as such large doses of socialism are easily rejected. It expresses admiration of Herron for his honesty and frankness, although it also acknowledges that smaller, more “insidious” forms of socialism are dangerous. On the same page, however, the Journal includes reprinted editorials from three other newspapers which condemn Herron and support Crounse. If it was not willing to criticize Herron more heavily itself, the Journal was certainly willing to demonstrate that others were doing so.
Not Dangerous
The Journal [sic] has been criticised [sic] because it neglected to inform its readers that the firmament was shaken, the sky on the point of falling, and the bottom of things ready to fall out because a reverent gentlemen unknown for the most part to the Nebraska world, had interpolated a very radical socialistic address in the commencement exercises of the university in place of the usual thing on such occasions.
It confesses that the reason it did not lift up its voice and wail was because it apprehended no catastrophe as the results of the rather singular performance of Professor Herron. It had a certain admiration for the professor because he came out honestly, and in the vernacular of the vulgar, "went the whole hog."
The Journal [sic] does not believe that that sort of an exposition of socialism does much injury, for the reason that a big dose of poison is usually its own antidote. It will not stay on [sic] the ordinary healthy stomach for a minute. The socialistic drug in broken doses may be soporific and lethal, but heroically administered it is merely a fool-killer, and the system of a sane and evenly balanced citizen throws it off without any great effort before it does any appreciable damage.
There are hundreds of magazine writers, pop and prohibition lecturers and stump orators and mildly sensational clergymen in the land that are administering the stuff in smaller quantities, disguised in moral jam of gelatinous intellectual capsules, in the periodical literature and oral debates of the day, who may be considered public enemies because they insidiously undermine the faith of the weaker brethren and sisters in the congregation and fill them with wind pudding and unutterable longings for the infinite and Utopian, but Professor Herron is not of these.
A clear, unequivocal and complete statement of a proposition in its own demonstration or destruction. Herron's confession of faith is satisfactory because it was clear, unequivocal and complete. No better answer to the Billy Bryans, the Jerry Simpsons, the Henry Georges, the Mary Leases et id omne genus of modern cranks can be made, perhaps, after all, then through the mediumship [sic] of such an apostle of the wholeness of modern pessimistic crankism.