The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1898-08-19
OUR BOASTED FREEDOM.
The Right Of . Free Press Trampled Upon
For Partisan Ends.
Especial Correspondence

Especial Correspondence
The ~ascendency Of the pothouse poll
tician and the fake statesman in this
country has come to be a matter Of
alarm to watchful citizens, and unless
it is checked consequences no less seri-
GUS than the subversion of the funda-
mental rights Of free thought and free
expression will ensue.
While our constitution guarantees
that congress shall pass no law
abridging the freedom of speech or of
the press, :" and our citizens have been
taught that laws violative of this pro-
vision are utilities, the politicians have
devised an indirect way to impose 81.
lence upon those whose opposition and
exposure they dread. This is done not
by any judicial process, nor by any law
directly prohibiting free speech or free
press. 1t is done upon the false assump-
ton that u ~postofice has powers never
conferred upon it by any constitutional
enactment.
The last case in which the authority
of the postal officials has been stretched
to accomplish the suppression of a polit-
ical opponent is reported in brief news
paper paragraphs as if it were a matter
Of trivial Importance.
The State, a Democratic weekly
newspaper Of Milton, Pa, an earnest
advocate of free coinage of silver and a
pronounced opponent Of Boss Quay's
rule in that state, has been practically
suppressed by being refused transmits
sion through the mails under pretense
OF its failure to comply with the postal
laws. The protest of the editor avails
nothing. What the postmaster a Y
goes, and the postmaster goes with his
party.
So the vital question today is not
coinage Of silver or gold. 1t is not So
cialism nor anarchism, antimonopoly
nor referendum. 1t is simply, Have we
the right to discuss these subjects at all
and have we any rights as against the
politicians and their owners?
1t will soon come to this that in disre-
gard of all constitutional and moral
sanctions the party in power will in all
cases use this arbitrary machinery OF
the postofice to silence opposition and
the party which starts out to maintain
some new principle, but which has not
gained a growth in the popular esteem
to enable it to hold it's own against the
tricks OF older parties will be utterly
swamped. All this deviltry is put upon
moral grounds. This condition was pre-
dicted when first the postoffice under
took the work of moral censorship, and
the prediction is getting nearer to it's
every day.
Conditions for the free discussion of
important social problems are no better
in England than in this country. With
IN a month Mr.. George Bedborough
was arrested in London and held to bail
III the enormous sum Of SIS, 900 under
pretense that he had sold an immoral
book. The charge is a mere subterfuge,
the real purpose behind which is to
silence discussion of social questions by
suppressing The Adult, a magazine of
Mr.. B~edborough was editor.
While the outrage upon the Pennsyl-
vania editor calls forth no resistance in
our English brethren are gath
around their assaulted countryman
have formed a defense committee
comprising some OF the brightest lit
erary men and women in England, and |
II discussion Of social questions is to be
silenced iii England it will not be until
after a thorough exposure of the iniqui-
ty of a judicial system under which
such trickery is possible.
A little of that sturdy Anglo-Saxon
resistance to the encroachments upon
personal rights would be a wholesome
and a saving element in the American
national character.
ED w. CHAMBERLAIN.
New York.