River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1890-04-03
A PLEA FoR CENSORSHIP.
Ono Way OF Protecting tho Newspaper
from the Individual.

from the Individual.
1t is plain that it is impossible to
assess the most serious damages that a
newspaper can infiict. Under the con-
ditions of modern life, the common law
can not protect the individual from the
INSCRIPTIONS or reckless newspaper.
Let us glance at some of the PROPOSE
tions to protect the newspaper from the
individual. One which is frequently in
sisted on by high authority is to make
a security for costs preliminary to the
institution OF libel suit This might
do away with a small percentage of
speculative libel suits, but would not
prevent ShS institution of single spite
full one. Another is the allowance of
the plea of retraction in mitigation of
damages. II is not the assessment of
damages, which is trade risk, which is
most hurtful TO newspaper in an
unsuccessful litigation, but the loss
of prestige and Indictment of other
suits. Still another provides that OK
press malice shall be shown in order to
carry punitive damages. The intricate
and inexact common law leans some-
what in this direction now, but all ex-
perience teaches that jury will hang
very large verdict on very small proof
of express malice. The amendment
which has been most loudly advocated
in one quarter relieves the publisher of
all liability and places it solely on the
writer. Personally, /, in common with
most writers, l think, would welcome
this amendment. The dignified retire.
ment of the second tier for the three
months following plea of guilty would
be Heaven compared with the month or
so of nervous strain consequent upon
the preparation and trial of libel suit.
But the proposition to relieve the princi
pal beneficiary of an offense from all re-
sponsibility for it's commission is so in
herently absurd as to call for no COM
ment, adverse or otherwise. Still
another device is to make the source of
a newspapers information solely liable
for its correctness This would be TO
destroy the press as an institution and
make it a more or less foul conduit of
rumor.
1t therefore follows, take it, that
the law of the land is quite iilcompe-
tent to protect the newspaper from the
unScfupulOuS lnulVluual.
Let us, then, frankly acknowledge
that the law of the land is incompetent
to deal with the relations of the indi-
vidual to the newspaper. Long, long
since we practically acknowledged it's
incompetency to deal with the relations
of the public man and the newspaper,
by giving the latter comparative immu-
nifty for any thing it might publish con-
corning the former. Let us erect an ex-
tra-judicial body which shall, with the
approval of the legislative body create
its own code. Let it be composed of one
journalist. one lawyer, and one man of
affairs. Let it define exactly, after ma
ture deliberation and the hearing of all
sides, exactly what the functions of
newspaper are, and let it protect its use
of those functions and punish
its abuse. l am quite aware of
the clack and clatter which any news
paper advocating this reform would
meet We would hear first of ''tLe con-
stitutional right of trial by jury" The
gentlemen of the long robe are making
that constitutional right such public
scandal that it is question If it long
SUI bAb anu Ato bhC
American Constitution is about the most
elastic thing in the cosmos. For three
months of every year in the city of Phil
adelphia a court sits which tries the
moral character and claims to good cit
izenship of three thousand men, finds
more than half of them wanting, stamps
them as wanting, is sustained by the
law and public opinion in so doing, and
does it all without the aid of 1.-The jury
system" or "the law of evidence" No
press censorship could be more arbitrary
than the license courts of Philadelphia
and Pittsburgh, and yet if press cen
sorship when erected should accomplish
one-half the good that the license
courts have done, newspaper and indi-
vidual alike would rise up and call it
blessed.-A. E. Watrous, in Lippincott's