The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1876-03-18
A "sEDITIoN LAW" THREATENED.

Roscoe Conkllng, senator from New
York, is "mad" through and through. He
wants to be president, but the people don't
want him and will not have HIM. And
now comes home 10 him, with terrible
force, the words he uttered in the senate
years ago, that "no one ever reformed the
" feat of passing from this chamber to the
chair of state" 81 warn my friends"
said the irate, but prophetic, Roscoe, "that
they must renounce the senate and all its
works if they wish to be president. Their
"staylng here will not prejudice them
"with mel shall vote for them all the
same but there is hot house air in the
senate which breeds candidates for the
presidency, but makes them past bear
ing, and kills them off before they get
their growth" And what the senator
then saw as in glass darkly, he now sees
face to face.
The senatorial "hot-house" having bred
Conkling into presidential candidate, has
made him "past bearing and now "kills
ntul Oily Dul no doh piOlOsC w
alone. He believes that if the newspapers
were out of the way, or could be made to
remain silent, his presidential plant might
bloom, blossom and bear fruit; and 80 he
thinks-at least he told the senate SO,
Thursday-that the time is near at hand
when newspaper articles, which say naugh-
t,,t hn, cuoh triOts and
men as Roscoe Conkling, Columbus Delano
Oliver p. Morton, William w. Belknap
Benjamin F. Butler, Orvile L. Babcock
George ii. Pcndleton, George II. Williams
and John A. Logan, twill be justly con.
"sldered as a conspiracy and defamation
against our institutions themselves"
He does not say that he will introduce q
bill to punish such "conspiracies and de-
d" famations," but there is an excellent pre-
cedent for such action. Years ago, the
then administration" aud it's blind follow
ers in the congress, enacted law, that any
person who should write and publish, or
cause to be written and published, Or assist
in 30 doing, any words "calumniating" the
government of the United States, or either
house of congress, or the president of the
United States, ''or any words calculated TO
" bring them into disrepute,' should be
punished by fine not exceeding two thou
sand dollars, and be imprisoned not more
than two years.
Now all that Conkling has 10 do is to re-
enact this old law and find subservient
judges and jurors to execute it, and he can
easily fill all the jails in the country. Mat
thew Lyon, of this county, wrote letter,
which was published in the Vermont Jour
nal, wherein he speaks Of the president as
swallowed up in an "unbounded thirst fol
ridiculous pomp" and "foolish adulation'
this was before Conkllng's day, and
therefore, had no reference to him OF
men of real merit turned out of Office fol
" independency of spirit'-no allusion to
the present administration and of the
senate "echoing" the sentiments of the
president with more servile than even
" George the Third experienced from either
house of parliament" was the sen
ate of 1898, not of 1876; and for this he
was indicted, tried, convicted and impris-
oned, although there was truth in his
words.
This would be, as we have said, an ex.
cellent precedent for the New York senator
to follow. The administration and the
Conklings of that day didnt like this kind
of criticism any more than do their success,
sors of to-day. And they had their re-
venge. Two Vermonters were imprisoned
for bringing these Statesmen" into "dis
"repute," and. editors and publishers else