The Washington critic., 1886-01-11
WASHINGTON. JAN. II, 1886.
MISTAKES OF LEGISLATION.


While 1t is true that civilization,
with the element of morality elimi-
mated, would itself decay, and Republi
can institutions, divcsted of the element
of liberty, soon crumble away for want
of foundation mistakes may be made
in the name of the one, as well as
crimes committed in the name Of the
other.
The Senate, we fear, is furnishing
illustrations of this in Mr. Wilson's
bill TO cut of the circulation of news
papers.
The error in the first instance, which
proposes TO violently invade the prop
crty rights of one of the most peaceful
and thrifty communities the world has
ever seen, on the preteXt that in no
other way can the polygamous prac-
tees of the Mormon hierarchy be
broken up, is an error so obvious that
it can never run the gauntlet of the
direct representatives of the people in
the lower House.
IN the other case the error consists
in an equally arbitrary menace to the
freedom of the press by prescribing
limitations TO Its advertising patronage.
This the bill docs not do in direct
way, by making 1t penal ollense to
admit such and such matter to the col
umns of the papers, but by inhibiting
the distribution through the mails of
papers in which such and such matter
is printed.
The question involved is not so much
of dollars and cents as ii is of private
right 1t is whether the owner of
newspaper shall be at liberty to man
age his own business in his own way,
or whether the Government shall man
age IL for him. The bill says that if a
newspaper prints lottery advertise
ment it shall be debarred from all
mail facilities, and the publisher must
accept the dictum OF Congress or else
lose his circulation at great and
ruinous pecuniary sacrifice.
Whether the lottery business, which
has had the sanction of many great and
good men in its day, is really so bad as
the author of the bill may think, we
shall not argue with him, further than
TO say that it is no worse than many
other forms of betting, against which
no outcry is made and not to be men
TONED in the same day, so far as dan
gerous and dcmoralizing results are
concerned, with the universal mania
for gambling in stocks, from which
even Senators of the United States are
not exempt.
AT any rate, if ii is the great evil that
il is claimed to be, it should be dealt
with face to face. II can never be
eradicated by making war on the papers
which print the news about it.
But it is the principle of the bill,
more than its purpose, which is OBJ
jectionable. 1t prescribes that the pub
Usher of newspaper for printing a
certain advertisement, which is not
prohibited by law, of a certain kind of
business, which is protected by the
law, shall bear the stigma and suffer
the loss of being barred out of the post
offices of the United States
If Congress can do this. what can il
not do in the same direction? 1t can
exclude newspapers from the mails for
publishing the announcements of tho
National Jockey Cuban institution
in which many Senators take solid
comfort. 1t can interdict their daily
publication of Wall street quotations.
1t can go to any length the moralists
may choose towards establishing a cen
sorship of the press, even to the system
that prevails at st. Petersburg; but to
the credit of the Car of all the Rus
sias be it said that he goes about his
despotism in much more manly, di'
rect and open-handed fashion.