The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-05-22
WHAT GAN HE Dop


 as Pennypacker has by his approval ol the Pennsylvania libel law, and Quay isn't in much better case. One can al most feel sorry for an official who occu pies the unenviable position he does. | We are free to admit that the liberty of the press sometime s descends to actua l 1icentiousness. There are cartoons printed the country which are really a disgrace | and more of disgrace to the profession than to those whom they are designed to ridicule. The value of a free and un trammeled press can hardly be over-esti mated. The celebrated Irish statesman | John Philpot 'jurran, in one of hi' | speeches in Parliament. said: 'I con jure you to guard the liberty of the press | that great sentinel of the State. anc | that grand detector of public imposture Guard 1t, because, when 1t sinks, there sinks with 1t, in one common grave, the | liberty of the subject and the security of the crown"
 These were noble words and noble sent iments, and if they were true in Great Britain more than a century ago, they are much more true now and in this country. The law from which Quay. Pen nypacker and Go. hoped so much was necessarily bound to be a failure in great part, even if it could succeed in Penn- sylvania. Being a State law, it cannot be enforced outside the State, and it should have been plain to those who fathered the bill that the newspapers of other States would ask no better subject than this on which to exercise all the talents and powers of the cartoonists. It could not have been expected that the picture makers of New York, for exam pie, would fail to take advantage of a law which offered them such brilliant openings for the exercise of their tal- ents as this law does, The cartoonists could hardly ask for better material for their skill than this.
 But, leaving out the newspapers pub lished outside Pennsylvania, the case is little better for the authors of the law. The most powerful and influential news papers in the State didn't wait for the HIN tO oEy OH tHe IdW DelOIt they COfn- menced to violate it. Cartoons more of- fensive and humiliating to the Governor l than any which were printed before he signed the bill are now common. News papers which were disposed to be friend ly to him. and which deprecated some of the offensive cartoons. are now among those who are flaying him for his ac- tion.
 What is he to do? The issue was made by himself when he boasted that he in- of himself and Quay. He threw down the gauge of battle, and now there are but two possible courses open to him. His dare was promptly taken, his bluff called and his defiance met half way. Now he must either play the poltroon and allow the law to remais a dead let ter on the statute books, or he must go into the courts and enforce it. He is the injured or libelled person, and he is the one to bring suit, for we presume he can hardly sue ''by his next friend He must go into the courts himself, and what kind of figure would he cut on the witness stand? Says The New York Tribune:
 What can a man say on cross-examina- ton about the injury to his feelings caus- ed by picturing him as wounded and bepatched parrot, as a grotesque knight tilting with windmills, and as a homeiy little. little man trying to stop. the wheels of a great machine? Think of him in court room after being dissected by some sharp-tongued lawyer. He has made a fatal mistake. He has intensified the at suppress Instead of represslng the abuses of the newspapers which really call for repression. he is likely to give them free rein and make more difficult ards in the newspaper business.
 The Tribune is a Republican newspa- per, and we presume 1t would be friendly to the Governor if 1t could, but if sees that there is no defence possible To gratify the malice, or with the hone of salving the sores of his bosses he has placed himself in a position where bu- 1 initiation is certain and failure more than possible. It is but another evidence tha. discomhture Is sure to follow those who attempt to throttle the press As We have said, there are cartoons printed which are disgrace to Journalism, and if those who are responsible for them could be taught that the newspaper profession has higher duty than low bufroonrv no one would have cause to regret it. but Pennsylvania and It's Governor have gone at 1t In the wrong way, and in a way that must end in humiliation for the Iat- ter. The press of America is not to he throttled by such laws.
 The idea advanced in some quarters that Pennypacker's dignity as Governor of great State will not permit him to notice these attacks is not tenable. It is too late for him to plead the dignity of his office. He put 1t aside when he fathered the obnoxious law, had it en- acted and approved it, and that law did more to lower the dignity of the Execu- tive office than would all the cartoons which could be published in a century. The Governor is in very small hole and 1t is big enough for his kind
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 Things are warming up in Nashville S newspaper ciICles. The editors are pass ing the lie and other endearing epithets