The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1869-01-06
A soeUs MARTYR.

Some n en- are born great some achieve
greatness; some have greatness thrust upon
them. Mr.. Bowles. the editor of the Spring
field Mass Republican, may be said to have
come by the article in the last named manner
Il came, indirectly from the golden sceptre
of Northern railroad king, vulgarly known
as Fisk, and, directly, from the tipstaVes OF
the New York sherifalty, delegated to do the
bidding at midnight of this mighty monarch.
The deed and the hour were dark; but the
final effect for Bowles was bright and glori-
Gus. For two hours and ffty-five minutes
some authorities say three full hours-he was
incarcerated, shut vilely within the murky
walls of jail; for two hours and hfty-hve
minutes, or three full hours, as 1t may be,
separated from the endearments OF wife and
family, from the genial faces of friends, from
the profuse Inequalities of the Astor House,
with its imitation brandy, and its fusil-olled
whisky, only 80 cents and 40 cents respec-
lively per drink. He was plunged into this dark
ness and isolation, a martyr of the prosecuted
and down trodden press He came forth,
redeemed and disenthralled a triumphant
vindicator of the press's independence and
dignity.
The promphtude and unanimity with which
the New York journals of all political de-
nominations came forward to make the cause
of the martyred Bowles their own, presented
a spectacle which was, in itself, admirable to
contemplate. And the fact that the Northern
papers, almost without exception, have de-
nounced the brief Imprisonment of the
Springfield editor, charged with libel in the
private suit of wealthy railroad proprietor,
as an outrage on the freedom Of the press aud
the personal rights of editors, would doubtless
be an edifying and reassuring exhibition on the
part of Northernjournallsts, of manly and
independent spirit which can brook no form
of tyranny and oppression, if the history of
the past eight years could be blotted from the
record. But there were days, that must be
fresh in the memory of every American edi-
tor, when outrages upon personal liberty AMI
upon the free existence of the press, compared
to which the arrest of Bowles is infinitely
trivial, were perpetrated, and these acts not
Only did not excite the Indignation, but clio
tied the positive appreciation of a major
ity of Northern journalists. In these days
no legal forms aud technicalities were al
lowed to obstruct and delay the execu-
ton of the DEGREES OF an omnipotent
and omnipresent despotism The tinkling of
little bell in closet at Washington was the
signal for Selling a citizen in New York or any
other Northern city, tearing him from friends
and family, and from the scene of his peaceful
labors, and immuring him in some bastile for
months, perhaps for years. No charge was
made, no reparation was offered it was DEEM
ed reasonable for the victim even 10 demand
an explanation. 1t was in that period that
two Of the leading journals in New York were
temporarily suppressed by military force,
though the city was not under martial law,
merely for publishing inadvertently piece of
false news, an accident constantly liable to
happen and the majority of Northern jour-
nails, even some which accidentally escaped
falling into the same inadvertence, openly ex-
ulted over the suppression and applauded the
merciless temper of the government and the
remorseless vigor and fidelity of its agents
which the event indicated Where then were
the sacred franchises and muniments for
which these same journals now so fercely
clamor, when scarcely the furthest boundaries
Of them are touched in the case of this Spring
field editor prosecuted in a suit for the private
offense of libel? Though never more bitterly
needed, they we're utterly void of effect. If
ever an occasion called for the exhibition of
manly and independent spirit on the part of
the editorial profession, Irrespective of party,
TO vindicate the indispensable conditions of
free press, even to the point of martyrdom, it
was then. But there was no such
vindication. The courage of a martyr
in resistance to tyrannicai outrage had no
hackers, sympathizers and admirers among
more than one-half of the Northern Journal
lists of that time. What, then, is the signif-
canoe Of the clamorous indignation of such
Journalists at the. comparatively trivial and
the substantially harmless indignity put
upon the Springfield editor. Mr.. Bowles,
through the medium of legal machinery! 1t
is not by them that the essential rights and
proper offices of a free press will ever be
secured on an unsuitable basis. Those who
were the ready minions and sycophants of
tyranny when its gloom lowered all over the
land are not the men to become, in the hour
of real need, the genuine and unhinching
champions of liberty. or to appreciate true
martyrdom to its cause. Bowles, prosecuted |
for libel in unwarrantably assailing the priv |
acy, under cover of criticizing the railroad |
operations of Fisk, is bogus martyr, and all |
tie Radical editors who Indignantly cry out |
against the harmless arrest which followed |
the prosecution, are bogus defenders and ex-
emplars of the press's freedom and potency.