The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-10-30
THE PRESS AND DuRRANT.
stockton Mail.


Durrant, whether acquitted or convicted of
the awful crime of which he stands accused
mas peen subjected to an extraordinary ordeal
NOT only has he been compelled to answer be-
lore the regularly organized tribunals of his
county Tor the murder of Blanche Lamont, but
ne mas mad to face an arrogant, inscriptions
ana infamous inquisition represented by the
oah FRANCISCO newspapers. He has had one
trial under the forms of law and another in
utter disregard OF the principles of decency
ana justice. One has been in progress only
since he was arraigned in the Superior Court;
the other began from the hour the bodies of
the two girls were found in the desecrated
church on Bartlett street. In one he has had
the dement, OF the presumption of innocence,
The right to be confron ted by witnesses, the
privilege or being represented by counsel ana
all the safeguards to which, in a free country
person accused OF crime is entitled. In the
other he has been condemned from the start
without hearing, put on the rack, tortured
by gossl p-mongers, lampooned by caricaturists
and Indignantly assailed by sensationalists.
Nothing in the history OF the press of San
francisco has SO fully exposed its disgraceful
methods as its course In reporting the police
and court proceedings against Theodore
Durrant. THE CALL may be left out as g. con-
spicuous aud honorable exception since that
journal passed under its new management. II
there be failure OF justice in this celebrated
criminal case the responsibility for that failure
Will have 10 be charged to the brutal, vicious
and demoraliZing conduct of its City contem-
porarles. All sense of honor and decency in
the news treatment of the atrocious crime and
OF the alleged relations to il of the medical
student seems to have been ignored bv the
managers OF those journals ever since the hour
OF ms arrest An event of an exceptionally
appalling character, which has shocked the
moral and spiritual foundations of society,
ana which should have influenced all right
minded people to contemplate its develop
ments with horror, has been made by these
managers the occasion for pandering to the
morbid appetite for sensationalism. 1t has
been regarded by them as a great opportunity
TO create from day to day spectacular effects.
to make sport out of the incidents OF the
crime and the trial of Durraut. Many of the
sketches made of the court, the jury and of the
witnesses nave been drawn in the spirit of bur
lesque. AS for the defendant, but one motive
seems to have inspired the so-called artists
ana that was to contend among themselves to
see which could draw the most forbidding and
brutal portrait of him. This rivalry has been
Kept up from week TO week until the ideal pro-
duced Is that of q typical murderer. Surely
the deprav1ty of journalism has no deeper
depth than that which has been sounded by
these papers.
The browning capsheaf of press infamy is the
optruslon OF the Cunningham woman into the
case This androgynous reporter, it may be
safe TO say, has in no sense promoted the ends
OF justice. She was detailed to spy on the de-
tendant and eXtort q confession from him.
mat she failed is very clear, yet we find this
vain and ridiculous female posing on the wit
ness-stand, trying to swear away the life OF a
man whom she had approached in the guise of
a good Samaritan. Even the INSCRIPTIONS
newspapers that employed this woman as O.
dirty hlrel1ng seem 10 be ashamed to own her.