The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-01-28
For Justice to Publishers.

It Is the belief of close observers that
the addresses made at Harrisburg
Tuesday night by Colonel Mcclure and
Charles Emory Smith have materially
strengthened the probability that the
present legislature will revise the libel
law of Pennsylvania in the interest
of public justice. Both of these emf
nent journalists, speaking, as they have
a right to, for the press of the entire
state, made emphatic disclaimer of any
wish to solicit for the publishing inter-
ests favoritsm from the law or of any
inclination to smooth the pathway of
journalists who abuse their office; but
they also made eloquent demands for
the placing of the newspaper business
OH a footing of legal equality with 9TH
er interests.
That it is not now on such q footing
is apparent to any one who has made
the slightest study of the subject For
example, a newspaper man is the only
citizen of Pennsylvania who can be
indicted, time after time, in each of the
sixty-seyen counties of the state, for
one oflense. He is the only citizen who,
after being punished for a crime in
criminal proceedings, can again be pun
ished in civil action by the award of
punitive damages He is the only citi-
zen who can be held by the law to have
committed d crime by proxy; that is,
through the fault of a subordinate,
committed without his knowledge. 1t
would be as sensible to arrest General
Manager Hallstead for murder because
an engineer of the Delaware, Lacka-
wanna and Western Railroad company
should, in disobedience of orders, run
over and kill man as to arrest for
criminal libel an editor absent from
he scene where a negligent subordinate
permits an injurious publication.
What publishers want is that they
may be subject to not more than one
trial for an alleged crime, and to not
more than one recovery in any case for
damages, and then only for actual
damage proved; that honest effort to
right an unintentional wrong may have
weight in their favor; that indictment
for criminal libel shall follow only in
case of personal guilt; and that rogues
who make a practice of stirring up
speculative libel litigation in hope of
being bought off may, in the courts 5
discretion, be foled by requirement of
advance security for costs. This is not
unfair. 1t will work to no honest mans
harm.
In conclusion, we cannot better dc
this subject justice than to quote, with
thorough Endorsement, the words OF
Charles Emory Smith: mo honorable
journalist seeks to remove any just
restraints upon reckless, wanton and
licentious journalism. We do not seek
to diminish just protection to private
character against public assault. We
do not want to reduce the fullest meas
ure Of responsibility for defamatory
publications. We only ask for fair anC
reasonable protection against oppres.
sive determinations which do not ap-
ply to any other class, and against
speculative harpies who undertake tC
prey upon journalism. Nor do we ask
for anything new or exceptional or un.
tried. The essential provisions of the
proposed reform law have already beer
embodied in the statutes of Minnesota
Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and many 9th.
er states. We ask only what has beer
enacted in these states without ob1ec.
tion, because its essential justice was
universally recognized"