Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1881-07-22
Aamrastfr fntelhserMer.
FRIDAY EVENING, JULY %, 1881.
The Editors Duty.

The Editors Duty.
Our esteemed contemporary, the Har-
risburg Patriot, returns to an attempted
vindication of the principle of journalis-
tic ethics laid down by it the other day,
when it declared that editors who
charge offenses against public officials
ssshould make information before the
proper tribunal against the persons
guilty OF the offense of which
they complain" The Patriot now
seems TO intimate that it referred only
to such Offenses rs the complaining edi-
tor knows of and nobody else, though its
original declaration had no such quail
fication. 1t would be difficult to ascer-
tain in what cases of public offenses the
Editor has knowledge and other citizens
are not ''blest or curst" with it, or why
citizen should be ''curst" by knowl-
edge of such offenses. What the Patriot
means to refer to is probably charges
against public men which are false.
Even in these cases we submit that a
better way than for editors to make in
formation is for the accused to bring a
libel suit. The law offers the accused
ample vindication by its civil and GRIM
inal processes, and they are the best
means, too, of properly informing the
public rs to the truth of the accusations
made and disputed. But the principle
that editors must become infOrmers and
complainants before they can notice a
crime against society," in their prints
the public prosecutors of their duties, to
muzzle the press in the execution of its,
and generally to prevent the punishment
of crime, We cannot understand how,
in the language of the Patriot, the edi-
tor can step forward and put tie ma.
chinery Of the law in motion" without
becoming the ''prOseculJr. That is not
the editors business, nor yet is it
s;eyerybOdy's business" and therefore
''nObody's business Ii is the business
of the elected administrators of the law,
and when the editor points out the Of
fenses and the offenders the duty rests
with the district attorney and the con.
stables to prosecute them; and if
the editor is found to he i liar, it
is equally their duty to prosecute
him for libel. They can do this without
being overoticious. They are elected to
do it and paid to do it, and when they
shirk their duty and try to put it where
it does not belong they prove their
cowarlicc and their unlitness.
TIE PHriot is, however, consistent in
practicing its theories, and upon them
we can explain its long continued silence
regarding the elaborate system OF public
robbery iii furnishing supplies to the
state which WAS set forth in the Press at
length Yesterday, which the Ncu Era,
of this city, animadverted upon last year,
and with which the readers of this jour
nal have been made familiar for five
years 10y the INTELLIGENCEH'se S exposure
of and attacks upon the iniquity. The
Press charges specifically that Cyrus L.
Detre. of the firm of Moss & Co., Phil.
adelpi,ia. "a Mr.. Piper, of the Patriot
office, Mr.. .Chas. III. Bergner, OF the Har-
risburs Itlegrnph, ex-Chief Clerk of the
House VIC. ShurlOck, Chief Clerk of the
Senate Thomas Il. Cochran, Mr.. Samuel
Adams, i notorious contractor for state
supplies, Chief Clerk of the House, Harry
HUM, Senate Librarian J. C. Delaney,
and others not 50 We'll known, have been
for years con spring to rob the state by
obtaining money from the state for sup
plies, grossly overcilarged for or never
furnished III all, AMI that they, or some
of them, have defeated investigation and
disclosure 10y bribing the witnesses to
their guilt to abscond and stay away.
These charges are either true or net
true. In either case the Patriot is con-
sistent in preserving Il graveyard silence
about them. Ii they are not true the
Press wou!i be caargcable with Il gross
libel, AM tn editor of the Patriot could
not 'n>iS;r'ntiy ialulgt in that charge
without setting the laws machinery in
motion against the P.ess-whicl he has
not done. If they are true then the Pa
triot could not affirm them without its
editor making Il complaint against the
conspiring public plunderers-which it
has not done.
But the Patriot cannot continue to be
inactive. For if these charges are
proved or remain unanswered. the pub
lie will want to know why it, published
where this thieving has been going on,
has not :erretel it out and exposed it.
II they are false its editor is bound, in
accordance with his declared idea of
good citizens duty, to put the machinery
of law into operation against the libeller
of Mr.. Bergner, of the 1elegraph, of " a
Mr.. Piper" of the Patriot, and of other
good men and true, accused of high
crimes and misdemeanOrS.
The Ephrata Society.
The community of Seven Day Bap.
"a x>s h~