Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-10-04
The Disbarrlent Case.

The Of most interest to everyone
to-day is that Of the reversal of the order
of the court of Lancaster county disbar-
ring the editors of this journal. To them
it is hardly Of more consequence than to
any other citizen and especially to any
other editor. If it had been declared by
the supreme court to lie the law that an
editor may not, while he is member of
the bar, criticise the judicial conduct of
the Judge upon the bench, that decision
would of it's own force have driven from
the bar every editor who chose to keep
himself free to discharge in an honest and
independent way his duty to the public.
We, us the particular editors con-
cerning whom this test had been
made and this law pronounced, would
not have been more thoroughly deprived
of our offices as lawyers than our fellow
editors who are lawyers would have been,
for they could not with self-respect have
held two offices whose duties had been
thus declared to lie irreconcilable.
Nor would the people have Jared bet
ter by the gag thus placed upon the class
of the community to whom they eSpe-
cially look for political leadership and
instruction. The bar is the road taken
by the generality of well educated young
men who have political aspirations. With
such sword suspended over their heads
in the hands of the judges, not a lawyer
cn,,1l hos n fal hn cf IN orr
his lips even in private without apprehen-
sion. For the understandings Of judges
are as many and various as that of men,
and sometimes marvelously poor: and
who can tell to what they would lead
them, guided 10y malice or stupidity:
OF course this decision of the supreme
court is what everyone expected. Com
mon sense alone was needed to feel sure
that it could not be otherwise. AS Cen
eral Hancock says, and we all know, in
this age and in this country we move for
ward, not backward. And what 4 retro
grade step, indeed, would it have been to
put the press and the bar under the heel
of the bench, and to declare that, how
ever weak and wicked the man who puts
on the ermine. it should protect him from
the shafts of az honest public criticism
For the judges Of this court, in this
hour Of their humiliation, we have no
word of further rcproach. We feel, as
we have said, that their act was not
against us so much as against all their
foll,,r ..iy rlhis Iiclar,nonI nr,1or
which has caused us Inconvenience, eX-
pense and loss, had for us 10 NOR
tification, for We felt that We had
done nothing for which our con-
sciences reprQrcd us, but that on
the contrary We could not have done
less than we did with self-approval. The
comment to which Judge Patterson took
exception was fair and truthful. We
scarcely know, i'm fact, what there was
i'm it that was resented 10y him. II did
not charge him with wrong-tlOing indi-
vidually and apart from the court. Its
utmost sting was i'm its accusation that
the court was restrained by political bias
from inquiring into and resentinga a gross
imposition whicl, we declared had
been practiced upon it by certain
members of its bar whom we named. In
this Indictment of the court Judge Liv-
ingStOn was as fully included us Judge
Patterson, and there was the same rca-
son for both to feel affronted. We do
not know what malign influence drew
Judge Patterson Oh TO attempt so
arbitrary and lawleSS an exercise of
power as w:,s his ridiculous bull against
us : nor wherefore Judge Livingston,
who recognized its folly, permitted him.
self to concur in it. But such rs it is it
StOCd, and is now OverthrOwn.
1t served Il useful purpose, ana il is
well that il WAS done. 1t has secured
an authoritative exposition of the rela-
tiOns of the bar, the bench and the press
It has served to erect Il sign-bOard upon
which those who hold judicial power
may read its limits: and those who
WELD the editorial pen may find its re-
stri ction; and the lawyer may know his
privileges and responsibilities; while the
people are assured of the preservation of
their liberty in free press, in free
speech and in Il respected judiciary.
- All s well that ends we'll.
Viilainy AfoOt.
Closely treading on the heels of the
lpOOrt that Garfield is to Withdraw and