St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-01-26
EXECUTIVE SESSIONS.

The GLOBE is sorry to have hurt the
feelings of any of our senators by re-
porting to the public debate at one of
their recent executive sessions, but it
had no alternative. The GLOBE does
not believe in executive sessions. They
were inaugurated in the beginning of
our history against the advice and con-
sent of the nations foremost minds,
and if they ever had any foundation of
sense it has long since been washed
away.
Secrecy in the doings of a public
body like the senate is an impossibiIity
at the present day. In our age there
are no secrets from the public press.
The GLOBE knows everything which is
said and done and thought every day in
every corner of the inhabited world. It
has myriad of reporters in its employ,
who make haste to mirror to it every
movement of every living thing. 1t
knows what goes on at the domestic
hearth of every family in the country.
There is not youth who wastes his
patrimony in sin. the details of whose
every debauch are not at the GLOBES
command. There is not woman who,
falthless to her marriage vows, medi-
tates upon a secret tryst for lust
orsgold, whose every footstep the GLOBE
does not see and mark as she goes on
her way. No bench of judges ever puts
its head together over a knotty legal
problem whose individual and concerted
reasoning is not at once reported to- the
public press. The GLOBE hears the de-
bates of every grand jury the world
over, and is present, notebook in hand,
at every executive session of every
legislature in the land. Nothing can be
hid from it. 1t has thousand more eyes
than ARGUS, and hands so many that
BRIAREUs is a cripple compared with it.
The public press in this day knows
everything, but it does not tell every
thing. Every man and woman who
makes false step is in its power.
But the function of the modern news
paper is not to crush, but to build up.
Itaims not to ruin the erring, but to guide
them back to the right path. If the
GLOBE told its readers all that it knew,
who could stand in the sight of his fell
lows with head erect and cheek I'M
blanched? A great many. perhaps, but
perhaps only a few. But the GLOBE
will not tell all that it knows. 1t takes
no delight in punching holes in the
fabric of society. 1t commends the
good; it pities the weak; it pleads with
the sinful. The GLOBE tells only the
things which it concerns the public to
know.
One of these things is the doings of
our public servants. State and city Off
Gals, the judges of conrts, senatess and
houses of representatives have no right
to secrets in the transaction of their
public duties. The people who employ
them ought to know their every meas
ure, ought to hear what they have to
say in defense or advocacy of their do
ings, ought to see how they vote, and
from what motives. If they are doing
something of which they are ashamed
they are not fit to hold public positions.
If they are acting for the interests of
their employers let them do it openly
and in their sight. The GLOBE thinks
that executive sessions are silly and
dangerous things, the bastard children
of star chamber methods. The senate
may lock its doors, but the GLOBE has
the key and will let the public in.