New-York tribune., 1872-05-21
TIE RIGHTS OF THE PRESS AED PEOPLE

Senators, we are informed are reluctant to
talk about the additional article to the Treaty,
as they were of the Treaty itself, year ago,
when they were mufling it up from the
people, until TIE TRIBUNE published it,.
"There is also great regret in Executive
"duarters because the correspondence with
Preference to the proposed new article
"obtained premature publicity through Ihe
"HeraM and TRIBUNE, as the uniayorable
Comments Of the press have so damaged the
"article that it may be considered necessary
"to present it in an amended FORM" The
plain English OF which is that the publication
of the correspondence showed to the country
that the article had been dictated with covert
threats TO the President and Secretary Fish by
Mr.. Gladstone on the 10th of April. No doubt
il would have been more agreeable for the
Executive to have accepted it quietly, or in
anv way covered up the mistake it had made.
But the people prefer, as they are forced by
its laundering into the necessity of eating
humble pie, to bake and swallow it after their
own fashion with what dignity they may, and
not to have it crammed down their throats by
England in the sight Of all men.
If the American Case had been subjected to
the knowledge and criticism of tho people as
the Treaty was by The TRIBUNE, and had
not reached them only by dribbling out
through the English papers, Mr. Fish and
Gen. Schenck would not probably have been
suffered TO follow their blunder to such lame
and impOtent conclusion.
There seems to be, in fact, an error of mis-
apprehension with regard TO the relative posi-
ton of Government and people among men,
bers of the present Administration, by which
it is held to be advisable that the country, as
far as practicable, should be kept
in ignorance of moOted points Vi
tally affecting its welfare until they are
irrevocably decided by the Government.
We can easily comprehend how this mistake
should naturally be made by men whose edu-
cation and habits have been altogether those
of military nature. The general trained
during his life to the conduct of battle
would certainly be most unwise to summon to
his councils in camp the ignorant priyates
who barely know how to march in step. But
the President of the United States was not
chosen to fill the place of a military despot,
while the people herded together as the rank
and file. The Government must not imagine
themselves the adults of the household, who
decide grave matters in secret caucus, while
the people are shut up like children in the
nursery. Occasionally it has been necessary
in our history sharply to remind each depart
ment Of the Government that they were SIM
ply the representatives, and not the rulers, of
the nation; chosen, not because they know
how to govern better than the majority Of the
people, but because they would be most likely
to govern according to the will Of that ma
jority.
The present is one Of those occasions. The
Treaty was the property OF the people; so also
was the American Case. No movement defining
our permanent relations with another great,
homogeneous people, and involving the danger
of war with them, should have been left to
the control of two or three inexperienced old
gentlemen so liable from timidity or other
causes to stumble into fatal errors. 1t was
right that the best wisdom and counsel of the
nation should have been brought to bear on
such a matter, and that from first to last its
managers should have moved under the re-
straining consciousness that the eyes Of the
whole people were upon them. AS it is, even
at this eleventh hour, the nation must see TO
it that they do not seek more than need be
to conceal their own unfortunate bluuder at
the sacrifice of the national honor.
--s---------------