Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-05-29

A NUMBER of lawyers oflate nave taken
it upon themselves to abuse the press for
It's License" for its abuse of Individuals
Undoubtedly there are newspapers which
are false to their mission ustas there are
lawyers who are shysters and preachers
who disgrace their cloth; but the degrada-
ton of the newspaper is an exceptional oc-
currence. The offenses committed by law
vers and members of the other liberal
professions are by no means so rare. The
courts of the country are open to the peo-
pie who complain of ill-treatment at the
hands of the press, yet the cases
where the papers have been found guilty
of the offense charged can be counted on
the fingers of mans hand. There is no
need of pursuing the comparison further,
except to say that what a newspaper says
is a matter of record. 1t stands for itself
and the columns of the paper are sufficient
evidence of whatever wrong has been done.
The paper is its own witness against itself.
1t is also fact that lawyer may bring IN
a bill in chancery against citizen which,
if printed in a newspaper, are held to be
libelous. This cannot be a question of
equity, because there is no reason why a
lawyer should be given the privilege of
libelling people which is denied to news
paper men. This would be class legisla-
ton of the most offensive kind. 1t come
with very bad grace from this class
professional men to complain of the press
They are themselves the chief offenders.
WHEN nothing in particular is going
on anywhere in the world the talk of few
men assumes proportions that are abnorma
to its real Importance. The declaration of
Count Vol Moltke the other day that the
era of cabinet wars is over-that now
Europe has only peoples wars-is a case
In point. Never yet has popular impulse
been the cause of great European war.
Nowhere in Europe, not even in france, is
the popular impulse demanding war now.
There is apparently nothing in the fnt-
ure to make a peoples war possible. The
old soldier has only been indulging in a
little military rhetoric because he was ex-
pected to say something when there was
nothing to say. Another topic to which
undue Importance is giving in the dearth
of European news is the talk of Mr.. Glad
stone. Somehow the grand old man"
cannot open his mouth in these dull times
without some one accusing him of re-
cantation of lifelong principles. There
was for long time fetch in England
that licened public house could not be de-
prived of its license without compensation
because the license was a vested interest.
The English courts have decided that no
such vested interest sexists. Mr.. Glad
stone may have believed in compensation
before-he does not believe in it now.
And then, too, great prominence is CIV
ing to the chatter of the nobodies who are
conspicuous as men of talk because of the
absence of men of action-Lord Harting-
ton, who finds in what he calls the proved
alliance between the Irish Parliamentary
party anu Ihe IhySlcai force parry IN
America the alliance between the Glad
stonians and the Parnellities an insur-
mountable obstacle to his return to the
Liberal ranks Mr.. John Morley, who de-
nounces the American House of Represent
atives as ''sordid' because it failed to pass
the international copyright bill. and the
wall of society because the Queen visited
Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, when she
fails to visit her noble subjects who are
not Jews. But we must have news
foreign news, and if nothing is doing in
Europe all there is for US is to be told
what somebody is saying.