The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-03-01
SAYS LIBEL SUITS UNJUST,
(Continued from Third Page.)

(COlLlQuCu IrOm LulIu dSCc
 case of inadvertent and unimportant
 Inaccuracies like these would be Tn the
 Interest of the honest press and of the
 community that wants an honest press;
 while it would be against the interest only of speculative rogues and their lawyers; and that severity of construc-
 tion and promptness of precaution
 against deliberate and persistent libels on upright citizens would be most help
 ful to the same public interests.
 It used to be more costly for a rail- road to take off some of a mans fingers
 or toes than to kill him outright So
 the law and the courts and the public
 disposition seem to combine in making
 1t more dangerous now to fall into a
 mistake about the precise varsity or date of the crime notorius rogue com
 mitted on some particular day in his
 yariegated career than to perpetrate almost any libel upon good man. Ten
 suits for such inadvertencies are
 brought and prosecuted to profitable
 conclusion for one that is brought by reputable person against paper of un-
 doubted ill-will for real libel. How can you stimulate the press to tell the truth and be fair while you let the de- S7iheratelv untruthful and unfair alone, vet hold those who are fair in intention, and only untruthful by misadventure and about people of bad character, to costly responsibility, amounting to per Secution?
 The lecturer next entered upon dis cussion of probable changes in the newspapers of the future, dealing first with MT. Harmsworth's recent experi- ment and with some others on religious lines; and then with questions of size, prize, ownership, nature and quality or matter furnished, improvements in per Honnel, advantages of rich newspapers, MT. Bryan's ideas about individualiza- fion, party organs, relations to the counting room, etc.; and finally took up the theories of the old maids through out the country who are constantly tell ing how to edit newspapers as well as how to bring up children. Of one or these theories he said:
 Another is that the paper shall in all things, in every issue and in every item be always strictly accurate. I vote for that myself. What is more, l will un- xlertake to furnish it. I will only ask, as the single prerequisite, that you fur nish me, for the office staff one hun dred men who never made mistake, who always see the same thing exactly In the same light with everybody else, and who will be able to tell it as quick as the quickest; and then that you will distribute about the globe for me hum flred more, scattered from the Hobbies of Washington, Westminster and the Pal ais Bourbon to the headquarters in South Africa and the Philippines, and the places in Stamboul and Pekin, with the instruction that, in all their accu- racy, those children of light must never be an hour behind the sons of Belial in turning in their stories. Let no one im- agine that am trying to excuse per- versions of the truth or justifying in- accuracy. I am only taking the liberty to remind you that perfection is not in man.
 The lecturer summed up his discus sion as to the newspaper of the next quarter or half a century as follows;
 It will more generally tell the truth and be fair if the community and the courts do their part. But the respecta- ble and intelligent community must not show the kind of paper it likes so large 1y by buying the other kind; and the courts must not emphasize their love of fairness by making the accidental and 11ninportant libels in the fair papers the chief objects of their judicial sever ity. We shall have fewer sensational papers. and get the news told more as a landscape is painted, with some sense of perspective and some artistic omis- sion of offensive or worthless objects, l whenever and as far as the public taste is well enough educated to prefer cor rect and vivacious style to ''blood and thunder" written and printed as if with a. paint brush. We shall surely have shorter reports of many things if not also smaller papers. No reduction IS likely to come from the general publ1c's ceasing to look in a newspaper for 1n- formation which it daily wants and has been once accustomed to find there. h. formation only wanted by small classes, l on the other hand, may naturally drop | out as class journalism develops. The | notion that Sundays paper must be ten | times as big as Mondays will be miti- | gated The first-class daily paper of | the future is not likely to come in the | form of a book or even of a pamphlet. | Whatever it's form or quality of con-