The Nevada journal., 1856-02-15
NEVADA JOURNAL.
FRIDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY Is.
Honest and Independent Presses,

and independent presses than of any other
one thing, unless We except honest offl-
Gals; but as our young State has not
been blessed with super-abundance OF
the latter. she has wanted the former very
much. And it is not stating an untruth,
we believe, when we say that at the pres
eat time California has two fearless and
Independent daily papers; fearless be-
cause they know they are in the right,
and indepedent because they will sustain
the right and expose the wrong. We re-
fer to the Sacramento Union and the San
Francisco Bulletin. To claim that these
two Journals never err would be claiming
more for them than they would claim for
Themselves. But they are right as a
general thing, we believe, and have no hes
itation in expressing that opinion.
We have been led to pen this article
by noticing leader which appeared in
the Sacramento State Journal of Tuesday
entitled g Licentiousness of the Press" in
which the Life in Boston, Sacramento
Union, and San Francisco Bulletin are
mentioned as belonging to the same class.
The article in the State Journal is called
forth by the remarks of the Union which
precede Judge Shattuck's decision in re-
gard to the late State Land sale, and
which may be found in our present issue.
The following are a portion of the re-
marks of the State Journal:
We think it would do some California edi-
tors, We wot of, good if they would study the
common law, and learn the nature of the obli
cations right minded citizens are under to each
other, the Differences we owe to each others
opinions, and the right of trial due to every
man before he is condemned. Of late a class
of newspapers have sprung into existence
amongst US, whose conductors, while they &C.
knowledge no responsibility, know no com.
Functions Of conscience when they assail pri-
vatc and personal character and rob the pub
lie man of his only capital, reputation. We
aludc to such journals as the Life in Boston,
the Sacramento Union, and the Eren1ng Bul.
tetin. In every community there is a certain
number OF persons who have q taste for the
vicious, whose ears can only be interested by
unscrupulous SANDER, and whose estimate of
the value Of public journal is only formed
from the numl er Of vituperative epthets it
contains and the degree of moral turpltude it
can manifest. This is especially the case with
small.beer politicians, the loafers who believe
that Republican Institutions are of no value
unless they give the largest liberty to the la
ziest and most worthless members of society
Greedly they deyour newspaper attacks upon
their betters, and it is to win their plaudits
that such journals as we have alluded to be-
come vicious also 1t is the fashion of such
publicists to comfort themselves with the de-
lusion that they are only doing their duty in
exposing what they choose to call corruption
and rascality." However convenient this ex-
cuse may be, we question whether it will be
good in the eyes of the Divinity, for the SIAN
derer is morally not title more worthy Of
consideration than the assassin.
The article from which VIC quote was
intended only for the Union. For the
benefit of those who know nothing of the
editor and proprietors of that sheet, we
will state that Mr.. Upson, the editor, is a
well-read lawyer, gentleman in every
respect, and one Of the calmest and most
dispassionate editors We have ever had in
California, as the uniform mildness of the
paper has ever shown. That journal has
never made charges it has not abundantly
fortified with facts. In short, we believe
its facts have always been ahead of its
denmciations-leaving the reader to draw
his own conclusions. Therefore the ad-
wee of the scrivener to Mr.. Upson to read
common law is entirely thrown away, as
Mr.. Upson probably forgets more COM
mon law every night than his pretentious
adviser ever knew The State Journals
scrivcner says, in the foregoing extract
"Of late class of newspapers have
sprung into existence amongst us, whose
conductors, while they acknowledge nc
responsibility, know no compunctions o
conscience when they assail private and
personal character and rob the public MAJ
of his only capitil, character" Any on,
would not think this paragraph referred tt
the Union, as that paper is somewha
older than the Journal, and it is not ire
sponsible. The Union establishment i
wealthy. A person Gbeled in that jour
nal can always find property to satisfy
Judgment. What money it has made ha
been the natural result of its business
1t has never gorged itself from the Stat
treasury. Can the Journal show eIeal
hands in this respect! Will it deny tina
Gov. Bigler authorized it to draw iron
the State Treasury $500 for circulatin
about eight hundred copies of the las
census retuns-a job that no news