The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1879-01-11
Inyessigation OF the Cipher Tele-
grams.

the Potter Committee to investigate the
ciper telegrams whose translation and pub
LEGATION have proved SO awkward for the
is to be taken up by the committee. If bril-
berry was practised or attempted in connec-
ton with the electoral vote OF certain States
its exposure should be sought by all legiti-
mate means, and its perpetrators be pun
ished il there are legal means Of ascertain
ing their guilt and legal penalties that can
be inflicted. If there is no legal punish
ment the odium which attends exposure
and the loss of character, which is its just
consequence, are penalties which honest
men are willing to see inflicted.
Let the effect of this investigation be
what it may on the public Judgment Of Mr..
Tilden and his friends, no great regret will
be felt either in the democratic party or out
of it. But in connection with this matter
there is another question in which the
country has deeper interest, and which de-
serves investigation quite apart from the
damage which may be done by this in
quiry to individual regulations. We
privacy of Geographic communications.
There is no reason why messages
sent by telegraph should not be as inviola-
BILE as letters committed to The Post Office.
There is no more justification for tamper-
ing:with the one than for tampering with
the other. 1t is a crime punishable by
severe penalties to violate private CORE
spondence when transmitted through the
mails. If he who steals or opens letter
intrusted to the Post Office is liable to be
tried and imprisoned why should it be
thought commendable or even o justifi-
able thing to procure and publish private
kilograms?
'Do you, then," it may be asked, "object
to the detection and punishment of crimes"
We are prepared to answer this question
and to dispose of the argument supposed to
be conveyed in it. It is avery old question,
although it now appears in a new form.
The argument implied in it was strenu-
ously urged in former age against
the abolition of torture as a means
of extorting evidence. There can be no
question that when this method prevailed
in Europe a great deal of crime was discov-
cred and punished which would otherwise
have escaped. AS Macaulay said in one of
his speeches in Parliament against Sir
James Graham for violating Mazzini's COR
respondence in the English Post Office,
"There could be no doubt that so long as
the English law sanctioned the use of tor
ture o great many crimes were detected
by it. It, too, had its advantages.
Yes; for the instant Guy Fawkes
was shown the rack out came at once the
entire story Of the gunpowder plot. Even
this torture as we'll as the spy system, had
these advantages but then this country
had determined long ago that such were
pernicious, debasing and dangerous modes
of maintaining its institutions. Their an
cestors declared that they would rather
take the risk Of great crimes being COM
mitted than owe their security to that sys-
tenn or those means which would destroy
the manly spirit Of the people"
Torture ms a mode of detecting crime was
abandoned centuries ago, but the spy sys-
tem-espionage, as it is called in France
continues to prevail on the Continent of
Europe, although it was long ago banished
from England and never got a foothold in
the United States except for a brief period
during our civil war. We can imagine no
reason why the spy system is more allowa-
BILE in connection with the telegraph than in
connection with the Post Office. If man
should steal private letters from the mail
and publish them he would be convicted
and sent to prison. There is no difference
between the moral guilt of stealing letters
and that of abstracting kilograms. The
legal guilt is indeed different, because by
the laws Of Congress the former is made
penal offence, and the latter is not punish
able under any statute either State or federal.
II the telegraph were within the jurisdic-
ton of the federal government nobody can
doubt that kilograms would be made as in
violable as letters.
Nothing could be more illiberal and I'M
manly than to coustrue the fact that tele-
gram is sent in cipher as evidence Of a
guilty purpose. The use of cipher in
telegraphing is the precise equivalent of a
sealed envelope in sending communica-
ton by mail. The difference between a
message in plain words and message in
cipher is like the difference between o
postal card and sealed letter. As it is just
as innocent to send sealed letter as postal
card, so it is just as innocent to send
message in cipher as one in plain
language. If the Florida correspondence
in December, 1876, had gone through the
Post Office, and the letters had been given
up for publication by a postmaster, the
recreant officer would have been sent to
prison. The law does not permit faithless
telegraph managers to be dealt with in the
same way, because the telegraph is not, like
the Post Office, within the jurisdiction of
the federal government but who can
point out any essential difference between