The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1891-11-02
Gruber and AItemus.

The Rev. DIR. Scudder thinks that
the police should have protected Cru
Der and Altemus in their speeches at
Steuben and Henderson streets be-
cause the Board of Street and Water
Commissioners gave those fraudulent
opponents of ballot-box frauds per-
mission to speak, and because free
speech" should be maintained in this
free country at all hazards.
Like everything else this question
has two sides. DIR. Scudder should
know, if he does not, that the Board
of Street and Water Commissioners
took upon itself a duty with which it
had no connection when it gave
Gruber and Altemus permits
sion to make a cart tall
political pilgrimage through the city.
The law requires-it is not a privi-
lege. but a ~duty-that the Board Of
| Street and Water Commissioners shall
keep the streets (and sewers) in good
order. But it nowhere empowers
| them to give people the right to OBJ
| struct the streets. When people de-
| sire to parade or otherwise occupy the
streets, they must obtain the permits
| sion of the Board of Aldermen and
Police Board. When they have done
| this, and not till then, it becomes the
duty of the police to protect. And
until Gruber and Altemus did this
they were simply usurpers, precisely
as the Board OF Street and Water
| Commissioners was when it conferred
upon Gruber and Altemus an alleged
right it had no power to convey, and
could not possibly convey under the
law.
Now as to free speech. The NEWS
believes in free speech and the right
of the people to assemble under the
Constitution, at all times, to discuss
any public or private matter in which
they happen for the time being to be
interested. THE NEWS will always
maintain that right because it be-
lieves, with DIR. Scudder, that when
free speech is suppressed in this
country the citadel of popular liber-
ties will be overthrown.
But there are two sorts OF free
speech--the true and the false-the
free speech of the patriotic citizen,
whose right to be heard is supreme,
and the free speech of the political
charlatan, the socialist and anarchist,
whose sole object is to overthrow
popular liberty. Gruber and Alte-
mus belong to this class. They are in
it for dollars and cents. They are
ION the make" like Johann Most and
his fellows. They are penny torches
of incendiarism, like him, and should
be suppressed as he was.
Then there are two ways of assert
ing free speech. One is to hire a hall
and ask people to come and listen,
which gives them the option of stay
ing away if they choose, just as DIR.
| Scudder does when he a
political sermon. The other is
to do as Gruber and Altemus
did-it is the sort of free speech
that invades peoples homes and in
sists upon thrusting itself into peo-
| Piles ears whether they wish to hear
it or not. The people have some
| rights on this side of the subject,
which DR.. Scudder and Gruber and
| AItemus are bound to, consider,
| though they do not seem disposed to
| do so. A citizen has the right to pass
through the streets without being
| compelled to listen to the diatribes of
| such charlatans as Gruber and Alte-
mus. He has also the right to sit be-
meath his own vine and fig tree with
out having the nonsense of these
| hatulent orators hurled at him on his
own porch or through his own win
| dows. And it is the duty of the police
to protect him in this right even to
the extent Of arresting those who
assail it. DIR. Scudder knows
these things just as well
as THE NEWS does, and if
| Paddy Sheeran were to drive on a
cart to his door, back up to the curb
stone and insist upon firing a Demo
cratic speech through the windows,
| the Rev. DIR. Scudder would be very
likely to come out and jump upon the
ghost of free speech in highly irrever-
emit fashion. And he would call on
the police to come and take Mr.. Sheer
an, his cart and his windy grafton
away in double-quick time,
The right of a man to build and
maintain a windmill is undoubted.
But he must do it on his W property
and premises. He has no right to
mount it on wheels and fiirt its arms
or wings in the faces of people who
don't like windmills and don't want
them. Once this right is conceded,
Gruber and Altemus may &c a step
further, invade the Tabernacle with
their go. cart, depose Mr.. Scudder
from his pulpit and set up their
windmill in his stead.
That is free speech, upon the Scud-