A War For Public Opinion
There were a great deal of external concerns interested in the case of the young Methodist girl who had been employed at the Fall River Manufactory. For one, New England Protestantism was suspicious of the encroachment of the comparatively new sect of Methodism, and the trial seemed to confirm their worst fears. Another was the 19th century American industrialists whose cotton mills relied on the labor of young, newly independent women. The case of Sarah Cornell cast into doubt the industrialists' assertion that women would be as safe in the factories as they were working at home with their families.
It was therefore in the interest of the factory-owners to keep Cornell from being smeared in the press, and to push for the arrest and conviction of her murderer. Conversely, the Methodist Church wanted to earn respectability and make converts, and wanted to avoid at all costs a criminal and sexual scandal involving one of its own ministers. Consequently, both of these groups contributed a great deal of effort, money and publicity to the trial, for either the prosecution's side or the defense.
Read more about this topic: Ephraim Kingsbury Avery
Famous quotes containing the words war, public and/or opinion:
“Signal smokes, war drums, feathered bonnets against the western sky. New messiahs, young leaders are ready to hurl the finest light cavalry in the world against Fort Stark. In the Kiowa village, the beat of drums echoes in the pulsebeat of the young braves. Fighters under a common banner, old quarrels forgotten, Comanche rides with Arapaho, Apache with Cheyenne. All chant of war. War to drive the white man forever from the red man’s hunting ground.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)
“Hast ever ben in Omaha
Where rolls the dark Missouri down,
Where four strong horses scarce can draw
An empty wagon through the town?
Where sand is blown from every mound
To fill your eyes and ears and throat;
Where all the steamboats are aground,
And all the houses are afloat?...
If not, take heed to what I say,
You’ll find it just as I have found it;
And if it lies upon your way
For God’s sake, reader, go around it!”
—For the State of Nebraska, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Men of integrity are generally pretty obstinate, in adhering to an opinion once adopted.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)