New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1897-04-09
TIE ANTI.CARTOON Bill.

II would be hasty judgment TO assume from
the action of the State Senate on the Ellsworth
Anti-Cartoon BILL and the apparent disposition
on the Dart Of the Assembly to hasten It's pas
sage that Senator Platt who is held responsible
foAall State legislation Of Importance, has gwen
orl&s that it should be damned through
Senator Platt sometimes makes mistakes and
The Tribune has frequently felt called upon to
noint them out as we'll in the interest OF the
Republican party as Of the general good: but 1t
has not conceived it possible that with his long
and varied experience in politics he would make
the mistake of ordering the passage of bill by
the LEGISLATURE whose purpose would be gen-
orally understood rightly or wrongly, 10 be TO
protect him from one of the forms Of attack
which have always hitherto been considered
legitimate in political warfare. That caricatures
and cartoons are sometimes brutal in motive
and often extremely offensive to their victims
Is not 10 be denied, but not more so than other
notifications. and the law of libel equally covers
both. No public man Of any prominence in this
generation has escaped them. They constitute
one of the penalties men have to pay for great
ness: one of the drawbacks which all men who
desire 10 serve their generation IN high places
have 10 encounter and endure with what philoso-
phy they may And it is 10 be said Of most, II
not all. of the men Of our own time who have
fallen victims to the playful, or even the mali
cious. pencil Of the cartoonist that they have not
only borne 1t patiently, but accepted it as
token unmistakable that they were really some
body in particular and quite worth while.
II is not to be believed that Senator Plat has
undertaken by the unusual process Of what may
be called special legislation to make himself an
10 that n has
dered an eclipse of gayety and suppression of
prolific source of harmless amusement just TO
save himself from personal annoyance. That
he Is disposed 10 be arbitrary and perhaps AFRO
CANT upon occasions is well known, but 1t is
hardly possible that with his reputation for
shrewdness and sagacity and his varied politi-
cal experience he would carry his arbitrariness
and his notions of the absolutlsm Of Boss rule
TO such an extreme. Moreover, his treatment
by the cartoOnists has been, rs rule, unusually
considerable and kind, and in some cases 50
clever that 1t must have afforded him relief and
even cheerfulness in the midst Of his overwhelm-
ing and of late rapidly increasing cares He
could not possibly take exception for instance,
TO the attitudes and the expression which Mr.
Bush habitually gives him when that artist de-
votes TO him his genius and employs upon him
MS rare anu utLSutlui ptuNH' we Dt-
lleve for a moment that Senator Plat would
by an edict issued to his Legislature deprive the
public of the pleasure which it derives from the
cartoonst's art merely because In a few in
stances he may have been represented in atti.
tudes and with an expression not comparable
with his position and his official dignity How
ever much aggrleved he might feel at the disre-
spect shown him. he knows enough OF politics
and Of human nature not TO use his power in the
Legislature to resent the affront.
1t is true that plausible grounds for the be
lief that Senator Plat has interested himself
personally in the passage of the Ellsworth bill
have been furnished IN the extreme earnsstness
with which the newspaper which most enjoys
his confidence has urged it. A long and strong
letter from Albany which appears In that paper,
denOuncing without mercy, and to say truth,
with little relevancy some of the opponents OF
the bin in the Legislature would seem 10 con-
hrm the impression that the Senator makes it a
personal matter. But we are none the less in