Los Angeles herald., 1891-05-23
wHAr THREATENS TO BE GREAT
ABUSE.

There are certain tendencies In the
government of the United States that
must be checked. Chief amongst these
is the attempt to make the postoffice de-
partment bureau of espionage. There
is of course much reason for preventing
the circulation of obviously immoral
matter through the mails. No agency
of the general government ought ever to
be allowed to become the medium for
demoralizing the people. Neither ought
the mails to be suffered to become con-
sciously the agent for swindling PROPOSE
tions. But both of these assumptions,
perfectly sound in principle, must be
accepted with limitations. After all,
the individual must be largely his own
protector. He should be reared with
the view of making him self-re-
liant, and of being able to re-
sist temptation. If he has not in him
self good deal of resistant quality the
sooner he is snuffed out the better.
Where a notorious sharper is using the
postoffice machinery to swindle gudg-
cons out of their money, for instance, it
is perfectly right that the enclosures ad-
dressed to him should be arrested in
their progress and returned to the MIN
nies who have made the remittances.
And that is about the point where the
surveillance of the mails ought to begin
and end.
The most execrable of all the practises
of despotic government is tampering
with the mails. 1t is the first resource
of all tyrannical regimes. OF late the
government of this country has gone
great lengths in the line of despotism.
The constitution of the United States
says that congress shall pass no laws in
fringing the liberty of the press. Under
law of congress the postmaster-general
has forbidden the transportation OF any
newspapers which contain lottery ad-
vertisement. Probably there was never
a more despotic ukase than this. 1t is
neither the business OF congress nor of
the postmaster-general to determine
what newspaper shall print in its adj
vertising columns. The law was passed
in some moment OF legislative SOM
nolency, in which the members of both
houses OF congress were not aware of
what they were doing.
Bad as the law is, the present finicky
and intermeddling postoffice officials
have sought to give it scope at which
even Russian despotism would revolt.
The other day the edition Of an Ell Paso
newspaper was denied transmission
through the mails because it contained
the text of the decision of a court of Louis
lana declaring the lottery law ofthatstate
legal. Here was peremptory exercise
of authority to which even Fouche, in
the days of the First Napoleon, would
not have lent himself. What the next
antic OF the postoffice officials will be we
do not even dare to conjecture.
We wish it to be distinctly understood
that the HERALD is no advocate of lot
teries. Men of sense will keep their
money in their pockets and not con-
tribute it to swell the gains of a lot of
smooth manipulators in New Orleans or
Havana. But we are interested in the
personal liberty of tie citizen, and are
appalled, at the lengths to which des-
potic measures are being carried in what
is supposed to be free country. The
same officious surveillance which is now
being directed toward lotteries and cor
respondence with possible swindlers
may next be applied to all classes OF
mail matter, leaving the line which sep
arates the republic of America, and the
despotism of Russia, as to such matters.
a purely imaginary one.