The San Francisco call., 1898-07-08
HEARST AS A TRAITOR.

| ' HAT w. K. Hearst deserves to De placeo Ill irons and sent under armed escort to the nearest
 prison is plain matter of fact Unless he can establish the plea of insanity he merits the reward of the traitor If he is lunatic, there are asylums. General Shafter has reported the statement of Hearst that the army was party to barbaric slaughter and rapne wholly unfounded. The report an official formality The fragrant lie told by Hearst carried its own condemnation and branded the author as trea- sonable exile from the country of his citizenship.
 Ordinarily the Hearst lie is inspired by personal malice wanton desire to create sensation. It is only since the man, losing faith in the nveracity of his subordinates, has entered the field as cor respondent that his hideous and abnormal character has been displayed in all its degradation. In his craze for notoriety his passion to be he nothing that his posture is indecent his presence blight, or that his reputation assals the nostrils. Once he merely sanctioned and encouraged lies; he writes them, shamelessly signing to them name which has become the synonym for all that is low and foul-hs own
 Dsporting bogus loyalty, he has proclaimed a patriotism which never existed within him. Prating of love of country he has abused its leaders, mised its military by false information, and he has made deliberate attempt to drag its name in the dust place stain upon its repute have it appear to the world accessory to assassination to the footing of the dead who fell in honorable battle He has exulted with the vultures, and spread before his readers feast of carrion. Official indignation has been aroused For this latest crime, the climax of a series, he must Charity suggests that the creature is daft justice that madman be restrained, traitor punished.
 When Hearst wrote that Cuban soldier, one Laine, had nveged forty Spanish troopers into render that these had by the Americans been turned to Laine and other insurgents and by them be- headed he wrote as silly fiction in the his tory of yellow journalism found its way to print Yet he wrote it matter of fact intended to be believed He told how magnificent Laine was, how his hand some face "glowed with enthusiasm as he related deeds of horror in which he had participated treach cry, murder and robbery of corpses the field. If Hearst recognized this idle boosting stupid ut terance of lying braggart he had business to send it. Accepting 1t as true, had he not been pervert, he would have been stirred to his depths with in dgnation which language better than he com mands could i'll express He would have exposed the daboca acts something to be swiftly and ter ribly punished But he gloried in them lauded the monstrous criminal who claimed to be guilty of them and with spirit hagrantly insulting that 1t could only dwell within mind beyond the thrill of noble thought or patriotic impulse ascribed part of the nameless vlainy to the army of the United States.
 II our soldiers braving death the torrid heights about Santiago to be thus held up to the scorn IOdtElng of them not inclined to be fair friendly be expected to think?
 If there is specific provision by which this form of treason may be stifed, at least Correspondent Hearst and his staff of malgn liars be driven from the field of activity where they constitute menace to our arms. Our soldiers not bent on massacre. To say they is wicked slander. None but Hearst would have uttered 1t.
 As the bloody handed hero at whose feet Hearst bows in worship he is horse doctor, perhaps an authority on spavn possibly well versed in colics but calculated to grace pedestal in the midst of admirng throng Happily the supply of Hearsts is too small to make throng.
 For this crowning lie Hearst ought to be scourged from the haunts of men, as he has been from the State of his birth. He has been nuisance, annoying and noxious; he has become peril. Already his sway over the two papers which serve as mediums for his his nonsense has been weakened
 It is the duty of the powers controlling them protect the public against the rawlings of Hearst, they protect themselves against other forms of his eccentrcity.
 In all the land there is not another so despsed and yet so potent for mischief Until the day when within padded cell he shall scribbe phantom mes sages to the papers he once owned he needs lodge in some vast wilderness remote from the telegraph There let him gibber to speak words of affection to his horse doctor but the world craves rest