The semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1882-1886, 1885-05-09
COURTS AND NEWSPAPERS.

y ~
COURTS AND NEWSPAPERS.
The relations between the courts OF
Justice and the newspapers have
never been definitely laid down in
this country. The Supreme Courts
of the separate States have passed
upon them, but the subject has never
been brought before the United States
Supreme Court in q way to receive
q full decision from that august and
learned body. There is to-day no
question ofgreater importance. That
the press should be free and untram-
meled is essential to the perpetuity
of our institutions. That any court
should be able to WELD q power over
the press stronger and greater than
that within the reach of the
humblest citizen is reDugnant to
our institutions. Such q power
would muzzle the press and stifle
Justice. If q judge should have the
power to commit for contempt the
editor of q newspaper who saw fit to
criticise the acts of such court it would
be a blow at the rights of the people
from which the nation never could
recover. It would be an incentive
to corruption and lead to the de-
hatchery of our temples of justice.
We can recall but one instance in
which a Judge attempted to exercise
q power almost akin to this. The ed
itors of the Lancaster EnteNigesces, in
Pennsylvania, were also practicing
attorneys. They had a case before a
rather stupid judge, who was a big
oted partisan. 1t was a political con
test case. The charge of the court
seemed to be against the law and the
weight of the evidence. The attor-
neys the following day, in their
capacities as editors, reflected severely
upon the court. The court promptly
had them brought before the bar and
fined them for contempt and decreed
their disbarment. Without distinc-
ton of party the press of the State
denounced the act of the Judge Is an
outrage and on q technicality the
case was carried to the Supreme
Court of the State. Before that body
some OF the ab!est lawyers of the
State appeared, voluntarily, for the
appellants, and on that occasion Col.
A. X. Mcclure. the able editor of the
Philadelphia Times and one of the
most eloquent men Of the country,
made the greatest argument of his
life in behalf Of a free press free
alike to denounce the thief IN high
and low places, and to expose cor
ruption on or off the bench. The
court decided that the Judge of the
lower court had the same remedy
against the newspapers and its ed
itors that any other man had and no
other. That while the appellants
were subject for contempt for acts
done in the presence OF the court,
they were not amenable for their
acts in their distinctive characters of
| editors. This is sound logic and good
law.
A case somewhat similar comes
from Seattle, w. T. Chief Justice
Greene, of that Territory, in the
past had some difficulty with the
Seattle Chronicle. 1t appears that
he attempted to interfere with a com.
mittee of the Law and Order League,
while they were disposing Of three
cut-throats whom the law wouldn't
punish, and was plainly told to make
himself scarce or suffer the fate
about to be melted out to his friends,
He left, but out of this circumstance
grew his animosity to the paper,
Recently he was called upon to ap-
point a Receiver for the establish
ment, and he is now playing the par
of q petty tyrant. He has ordered
that a copy of the paper be brought
to him daily, before publication, 81
that he might read it and see tina
nothing derogatory of the Republi
can party appear therein. This &C
of censorship has aroused the press o
the whole Northwest, and justly so
The Republican journals are as bite
in their denunciation of this would
be autocrat as the Democratic. They
have made common cause, as they
should have done. If the course O
the management had been of a char
acter to depreciate the value of tn,
property, the Court would have hat
an undoubted right to interfere, but
it seems that this is not the case an.
that the trouble is simply that tn
editor does not see things at tn,
sarne perspective as the Judge. Judg
Greene has clearly established hi
incompetency and his partisan spirit
and President Cleveland shoul,
promptly relieve him of his authorit,
and place a different type of man il
his place.
The press must not submit to tn
aggressions of the bench upon it
freedom and its un:estralneG course
The notion must never gain the as
cendancy or the sanction of prece
dent, that any court is above crit
cism, or that when criticised tn
Judge has a remedy other than by a.
action for libel. Any other cours'
would nake the newspaper the crea
ture of the courts, to be suppressed