Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1885-05-01

Our esteemed contemporary, the Non
Era, seems to be unduly exercised over the
alienatioxmkf our amiable friends, the
Judges of the Lancaster county court. We
beg to assure it there is no occasion for
serious concern. In the first place neither
Of the judges is as prone to say hard things
about the newspapers and their editors, as
he is to disparage his colleague; and
court that does not respect its own mem
bers must not be judged too harshly for
failing to properly respect the newspapers.
1t may be true, as our contemporary sug-
gests, that g there is marked line of
identity running between the press and the
bench in their obligations to the public )"
but there is no such close association be-
tween them as it intimates when it declares
it to be the duty of the press to expose
and denounce the immortality and crime
which the court and jury are expected to
suppress, or at least to punish,' to which
end the judges and the newspapers must
:" understand each other and, " arrayed
against each other, they become self-de-
structive."
The duties of the pressand bench are not
joint; they are not to hunt crime in
couples, at all. On the other hand their
functions are separate and distinct ; and it
is the right and duty of the newspaper to
examine, crticise and if needs be condemn
the conduct of judges just as much as that
Of any other public servants. Nearly all
the trouble that the court here gets into
arises from miscOnception of its duties,
from its neglect to duly attend to its own
business, and its propensity to meddle in
affairs that do not belong to it.
In the somewhat memorable case where
in one of our judges, with the assent of the
other, disbarred two attorneys for what
their newspaper had said of the court, in a
case determined and ended, and with which
the relators had no professional connection
Chief Justice Sharswood very clearly de-
fined the rights and duties of the bar and
press with relation to the elect of the people
to sit on the bench. He said:
It is now under the elective systeml the
right and the duty of lawyer to bring to tho
notice OF the people who elect the judges every
instdnce Of What he believes to DC corruption
or pdrtisdRShip. No class of the community
ought to be allowed freer scope in the express
sion or publication of opinions as to the cdpd-
city, inpdrtidtity or Integrity Of judges than
members of the bar. They have the best OPP
portunities of observing and forming a cor
rect Judgment They are in constant attend
ance upon courts. Hundreds Of those Wh0
are cdtled on TO cote never enter court
house, or if they do it is only at intervals as
jurors, witnesses or parties. To say that an
attorney can only act or speak on this sub
joct under liability to be called to account
and TO be deprived of his profession and live
tho S.tIa I'm ldtraS l.,
considers it his duty to attack and expose, is
position 100 monstrous to be entertained for
moment under our present system.
What is true of the attorneys is of course
equally true of the newspapers; and it is
their right and duty to "expose every in
stance" in which they have reasonto ques-
tion the capacity, impartiality or integ-
rity of judges" And i'm the exercise of
this dIty with proper discretion they are
responsible to the public, and not to the
judges.
But it does not follow from any of this,
as the New Era apprehends, that the press
can destroy the usefulness of the court by
unjust assaults upon it, or that the court
has power to destroy public confidence in
the press by Withholding favor from it
nor that I" their own satisfaction or "the
interests of society require them to be in
sympathy with each other"
A corrupt or malicious press cannot
seriously injure an enlightened and upright
court a weak and arrogant court, that
lacks popular respect and confidence, can
not impair an honest and fearless news
paper. Each can injure itself far more
than 1t can hurt the other, by belittling
conduct and by a transgression of its proper
functions. A self-respecting newspaper
Tiil find its " own satisfaction in differ
ing from rather than in agreement with
judges who are controlled by their personal
prejudices or meaner motives and the
Interests Of society require that jour-