Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-11-09
TEE GRLBBLE LIBEL SUIT.

A Crowd of Prominent Citizens Sum moned
as Witnesses by the "P. p" Company to
Substantiate the "Truth' of its Epithet-
The Counsel for the Defense Rests its
Case-The PLAINTIFFS Lawyer Rubbing it
In-Adjournment of the Case Until This
Morning.
There was a large attendance at the
district court yesterday upon the trial of
Edwin Gribble vs.. the Pioneer Press COM
pany, suing for $4,000 damages for libel.
In the afternoon the defense put on the
stand E. Foreman, of the Dispatch, in
place of Capt. Castle who was i'll, Jno. W.
White, Fl. l.. Williams, W. II. Mead, Jno.
D. O'Brien, o. e. Comfort, c. E. Otis, F.
Richter, Chas. Huber, R. L. German, VIM.
P. Murray, John Clark, S. V. Hauft. G. L,
Chapel and Frank Fairchild, and called
for several others who failed to answer to
their names, the object in calling these
witnesses being to prove from different
classes of citizenship that Gribbls was
what the Press had stated in its claimed
libel that he was e. 'shyster and imbeclle
and the butt Of the town." While the law
yers on the stand admitted that he was
| the ''butt Of the town" they al of them
lodged calling him a 'shyster" as care
| fully as if that word had been bot pota-
| 70, while some of the other witnesses were
tar less delicate.
In rebuttal OF this testimony the prose
cution called Fred. Allis, j. Star
key, John W. Warner anG George
A. Nash. At nearly five p. II. W. D.
Cornish made his plea and rested the case
for the defense. He claimed that by testi-
1nony it had been shown that the defense
had told the truth in the articles On Crib
! Bile. That it had no malice in these arti-
cles, but the case was that tha Pioneer
Press and Dispatch were in political
quarrel through their columns and that
Gribble stepped in to help the Dispatch,
got into Captain Castles shoes, and justly
got this side aUipe in return for not mind
| ing his own business. In the newspa-
portal attack made upon Capt. Castle and
Gen. Hawley in this connection with whom
Gribble picked up the club, he got hit,
and claimed he was abused to the amount
of damages claimed. When man got to
a pass to defend his character in
q libel suit for money plaster
he had not any character worth sustaining.
Such means to repair defective character
would not work. The defense had told the
truth, and had proved it had told the truth
by every witness brought on the stand, and
without arguing the matter OF damages
even, he would leave the case to the good
sense of the jury, claiming that the words
were used by the Press in the same par
lance and absence of real malice that one
man would call another ''fool' for some
defect in his character as professional OF
business man, and not in the sense OF
thinking to pronounce him an idiot, which
was the true meaning of ''fool." In this
case in abiding to him (Gribble) as 6
"half imbecile shyster," the real interpre
tation of the newspapers meaning was
that he was lawyer of low grade in hi:
profession, who went about picking NJ
cases on street corners.
1t was $50 p. N. when j. B. Brisbin
who has very ably conducted this case g:
acknowledged on all hands, star; "a in OF
the closing plea. He claimed TIE defense
had treated the case trifingly and suffered
it to drift down to the making of no cast
at all on its part. The plaintiff had beer
attacked, not as to his body, but in his i'm
mortal part-his standing with his fellow
men, his power to do business to supper
his family, and if he failed to recover il
this court a stigma had been cast upo1
him and his family by this aggression of
which neither he or his youngest child
could outlIve the damaging consequences
In ancient times crimes of this kind against
character were punishab's 18th death, but
the laws of punishment hau been mitigatet
for this offense, but they were still strong
| for nuDiChyo ant m Gonna
The defense had claimed to justify itself
by seeking to establish the truth of the
charges it had made by evidence of how
the plaintiff was regarded by public opin
ion, but the law required specific pooof O.
the charges as to man being "a half i'm
beetle shyster and idiot dribbler" on which
language by the Press this suit for damage!
was based.
The counsel then proceeded to show thai
in disagreeable quarrel between the Dis
patch and Pioneer Press, an official paper
was obtained without Mr.. Gribbie's con
nivsnce from one of his pension clients
and published, and that Gribble had no
contributed word to The articles in tn,
Dispatch which called out this "side wipe'
at him from the Pioneer Press and led it Il
turn lis tigers loose to tear down the char
dCLSI Ol luO WIlJlO ~ At5 pleas
ure because one Individual had Offended
il.
At this point the counsel stated that the
Pioneer Press had set itself up rs the au
toorat of the character of the people, anc
that its Lightning was freely hurled in this
particular upon rich and poor and higt
and low, and that it professed to take
charge of the public character, and leaned
to mercy only as regarded those who fed
its rapacious tills and fattered its ma
jesty. Whenever it attacked private char
acter, right or wrong, it blighted that rep
utation, whether it be in the professions
business, or the good name OF
women either in single or marital re-
lations. One of its lies could travel a mile
while ''trath was putting on its boots" and
there was no repairing good name which
was spat upon with the gall of its SANDER
Gus tongue.
Its reporters, and those of the Dispatch
delighted to crush characters, blight repu-
tstions and worm out secrets from the
sanctity of the domestic hearth, and would
enter the very jsils and crawl about like
noisome toads to pry secrets from those
imprisoned there before they could be ar
raigned a. tas bar of justice, that they
1 IL 1T Al