The Herald philosophizing.
The philosophizing of the New York Herald on the valuable effects of war upon the Northern character is edifying and suggestive. It says that before the war ‘"Mammon seemed to be our God and money the ultima thule of human effort, the summum bonum of existence.-- What influence could be more pernicious than this?"’ And what more striking illustration of it than the New York Herald? Its editor would despise himself if he could believe that any other earthly consideration could divide the empire of his mind with money. He has sold himself to any and every party that would accept his services, and scraped the sewers and gutters of the vilest social depravity to pick up something that he could convert into gold. He has even converted his own hide into a e of personal profit, and provoked men into caning and cowhiding him that he might add to his pile in a heavy verdict for damages. On one occasion, when it was alleged by a contemporary that Bennett would be willing to be whipped every day in the week, so he could make something in a suit for assault and battery, Bennett replied: ‘"Yes, and every hour of the day."’ We should rather think that ‘"Mammon,"’ not only ‘"seemed to be,"’ but was, in fact, ‘"the God,"’ and the only God of such as he. It is absurd, however, to pretend that the worship of that God has been interrupted by the war. On the contrary, he himself charges the Union Defence Committees of New York, made up of its principal merchants, with permitting the vast sums placed in their hands to disappear in a most mysterious manner, and giving no account of their expenditures. He says: ‘‘"The Union Defence Committee have been entrusted with the distribution of a large amount of money, and the public have for a long time been calling for a full statement of the disposition made of it; but, for some cause or other, it is just as hard work to obtain a bill of items from these moneyed men as it was to obtain a report in detail from the Japanese Committee of the Common Council. We trust that the aristocratic gentlemen of the Union Defence Committee have not taken Barker and his associates for their models."’ This does not look as if Mammon were despised, and ‘"courage, bravery, self-sacrifice and patriotism"’ substituted in his place. Bennett, moreover, exclaims: ‘"The war will make us a military people! We are burning with martial ardor!"’ The only ‘"martial ardor"’ the Herald has ever burned with, was the inflammation of its epidermis under the martial ardor of Brig.Gen. Webb, Hiram Fuller & Co. The venerable sinner will be burning with something hotter than ‘"martial ardor"’ before long, if justice has its duces.’
