The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-03-01

ate. There is not a newspaper to-day
 in New York, faulty as they all are
 that is not better than its audience
 There Is not an editor in New York
 who does not know the fortune that
 awaits the man there who is willing to
 make daily paper as disreputable ana
 Vile as hundred and fifty thousand
 readers would be willing to buy. 1t is
 the newspaper opportunity of the time
 the only great opportunity that has
 come since the concentration of capital
 and mechanical facilities gave the mo- nopoly of the present field to the exist
 ing journals. Several of these might take 1t; the editor of every one of them knows he is making better paper than
 his constituency would like, and that he
 might add half to his circulation by
 making it worse every one of them
 knows that less scrupulous rival may
 come to do what he refuses. It is with
 an ill-grace that theoretical reformers
 reproach these men for lowering the
 newspaper standard, and making jour- nalism curse instead of a blessing"
 The lecturer added that nobody would
 get him to admit the justice of harsh
 critics comment that this old para | 6 Cdlllt IOW uluSI luC HCaQ pL Lbi- filled prophecy But it might be admit ted, he said as a thing less liable to
 dispute, that the statement is still true
 as to the papers of to-day. There IS
 large public ready to have them worse. 1 The lecturer next began a discussion of
 libel law as follows:
 A specially bitter outcry in a commit
 nifty against newspapers might some
 times come dangerously near represent
 ing either cant or imbecility, or both.
 If the people who raise the outcry keep
 on supporting the papers they rail at
 it is cant. If these papers are really as
 bad as they are painted, 1t is also im- i becility; for libel, at least, is punish
 able offense. Here, however, we encoun- l ter a curious state of cross purposes. 1 Not half enough libel suits are brought;
 and yet most of those that are brought are unjust. People who have character to protect resort too rarely to the law against libel; but those whose character could hardly be injured are the first,
 under the guidance of lawyers, looking for their pay to a share in the verdict, to institute libel suits as a means of
 speculating on inadvertent errors. Un- happily the curious state of the law and the lingering effect of old decisions
 that illfit modern conditions combine to promote this unfortunate reversal of what every jurist and every good citi- zen has at heart. It is the rule of compensatory damages" that makes the law which honest men hesitate to use in their own just defense, perfect
 fountain of specula tion for men who I, ok, .to elk, ;,,Irt rt,,sr from disagreeable surroundings and consequently no reluctance to enter the courts on an ill-odored quest for cash.
 Take an old case to illustrate this perversity of Jaw. A newspaper pub
 lished that a certain state official had been intoxicated That was true. Un- fortunately it was misled (by his gen eral character or by some accidenD into adding 'on a certain public occasion" That was not true. The newspaper was able to prove that the man was habitu- ally and grossly incorporate and to ad- duce numerous and conspicuous cases in which he had thus displayed him self. It claimed that he had little char acter left to be damaged, and that at any rate the damages for such slip should be nominal. But the court stern- ly held that these facts made no differ ence; that they could not even be laid before the jury; the man was not prov ed to have been intoxicated on that oc- casion, malice must therefore be pre- sumed and the damages might, in the jury's discretion, even be exemplary. And so the state official found that his | bad character, which naturally led peo- pie into much errors about his conduct, 1 was gold mine for him.
 A woman had been accused of certain misconduct in certain company. The | only error was as to the company The misconduct was frequent and notorious, and could be proved ad nauseum. But | she sued for the damage to her charac- ter by the unimportant inaccuracy. and | recovered for it as if she had been a saint.
 In another case 1t was published in a multitude of papers that man had de- frauded his employer in certain way, and there was apparently no doubt of the fact, though there were unexpected l obstacles in the way of getting legal l evidence. It could be proved that he had defrauded his employer in other ways, and had defrauded other employ CTS peIOfe nm. put TOT the purpose or | estimating the value of the character he had left to be lbeled none of these facts could be considered, and he got exemplary damages from one newspa- per after another till his bad character turned out far more lucrative to him than good one could ever have been.
 All this may not be justice, but there is no doubt 1t has long been law. Hap oily a change seems to have come. In a recent case a man who was inadver- tently reported as having committed suicide brought suit. The newspaper had been misled by the blunder of a distant agent, without the suspicion of malice. But when the man undertook to speculate on the cruel injury to his character from the story, that he had killed himself, the newspaper succeeded in getting permission to prove that his character had not been good enough on more than on occasion to keep him from killing other people. For once the poor libelled homicidal victim and his | speculative lawyers were overruled by the presiding judge, who uttered mere- ly the common sense of mankind in saving that in an action for libel the damages could only be properly assess ed when the jury knew how capable of