Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-08-05
THE TRUTH OF the MA7TER.

Islander and malign, or to persistently
and maliciously mislead the people. Those
duties which individuals owe to each
other the press owe to the public. and at
no time should the liberty Of the press
imply the right to maliciously injure
those whose acts may be legitimate topics
for debate. Liberty of the press and free
dom Of debate are recognized as fundaI
mental principles under a form ofr.gov-l
eminent that grants to the Individual
every personal right that does not inter-,
fere with the personal rights of some
other individual. But the distinction be-
tween liberty and license must at all
times be recognized, and public sentiment
must be largely depended upon to correct
a tendency in the wrong direction
The yellow sensational newspapers that
have acquired a footing in this country.
during the past decade and a half, vul-l
carly thrust into the face of the public
through millionaire influences instead Of
growing into prominence on their own
merits. have unfortunately aroused in the
public mind a distrust of the sacredness
of the time-honored idea that a free press
is the palladium of our liberties. Insofar
as the doings Of the day are concerned,
the froth and audacity and filth and
furbelows and filigree ornamentation of
sensational journalism excite little inter-
est in the public mind. But when the ma
ton is engaged in war and great issues
of paramount Importance to the whole
people, to posterity and to the world, are
involved, the efforts of these yellow jour-
nails to increase their sales and promote
their own business interests by trying to
embarrass the government, is looked
upon with growing impatience by the
people.
There is no question but that such men,
dacious newspapers as the New York
Journal, and the swarm of lesser lights
that revolve around it. taking daily baths
in it's halo of rottenness and sin, do in
calculable injury to the national interests
| of the people by leading the vicious and
the ignorant into lines of belief wholly
at variance with the facts. The persist
ent and scandalous Misrepresentation of
public affairs in times of war, with a
view to creating distrust and discomfort
with the hope Of inducing the government
and it's people to work at cross-purposes
in times of public emergeney-calls fora
most vigorous rebuke from every patri-
otto citizen in the land. y
newspapers hat the protest of the So
called round-robin was sprung upon the
public. The exigencies of war require a
certain amount of discretion in the CIV
ing out of the news, n a press censor
ship is invariably created for the time
being in order to afford the proper pro-
lection to the government. The audacity
of the yellow journals would recognize no
federal restriction which it was bound to
respect, hence the putting up of a job to
rebuke the government for establishing
rules which interfered with the sensa-
tional rot which the cheap reportorial
guys in the Philippines desired to send
!, forth for public consumption. The
Worcester Gazette outlines the situation
very clearly as follows:
The truth Of the matter undoubtedly is
that the correspondents in the Philippines
have been prevented from divulging Sc
crets, writing sensations and making crit
icisms, and to get wen ave declared wal
on General Otis. The same thing very
nearly happened in the last Soudan cam
!. paign.g General Kitchener was far more
! severe on the correspondents than Gen.
eral Otis has been, and as a result it was
openly boosted in newspaper circles in
! London that his career would be ruined
> Before anything could be done to accom-
, plish that. Kitchener had won his vic.
r tory, and his fame was so securely estab-
= lished that there was no use in attacking
it. General Otis has met with a similar
conspiracy, and has not had a great vic
s tory to make his reputation safe. h
9 far he has had a far more difficult tasf
than Kitchener. The latter spent two
: years in preparing, and then met his foe
+ in the open, in a solid mass, where he
moved them down as though they were
"a sheep. Otis has fought without previous
r preparation, and has as yet spent only
five months in actual operations. II he
had had Kitchener's conditions to dea
with he would have had as striking a vic.
r tory, and would be so much of a hero tina
. the correspondents would not dare to at,
tack him. AS 1t is, the meaning OF theil
n attack is so plain it misses fire, and Otis
G will not suffer through them. AS the
Army and Navy Journal says. their at.
tacks on him are nothing compared t
d those on Grant just on the eve of his