The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-05-16
AN INFAMOUS LAW.

I Of Pennsylvania. When he was nominat- | cd and elected, we looked on him as sim ply a tool of Quay and his disreputable band of politicians, and expected him to be willing creature in their hands, and that he would follow whatever policy was most desirable to them. This prediction has not been fully justified. In various ways he has shown himself superior to his surroundings and to those who placed him in power. We are bound to admit, however. that his approval of the in- famous newspaper libel bill has taken l away much of the favorable opinion we had begun to entertain of him. Some of the reasons he gives for his approval are worth publishing at some length, the following for example:
 Within few days in leading article on the first page of a daily journal, under large headlines, ipon a rumor Of un- known source as to the name of sug- gested appointee to the position of prothonotary of the Supreme Court, when no appointment had been made, and no utterance, official or otherwise, had emanated from any member of that court, that high tribunal was subjected to a covert assault under the words Machine After Control of the Supreme Court"
 A Mayor of our chief city has been called Q trailer. a Senator of the United States has been denounced as a yokel, with sodded brain. Within the last quarter of century two Presidents of | the United States have been murdered, and in each instance the cause was easily | traceable to inflammatory and careless newspaper utterance.
 A cartoon in a daily journal of May defines the question with entire precision. An ugly little dwarf, representing the Governor of the Commonwealth, stands | on a crude stool The stool is subordinate to and placed alongside huge printing press with wheels as large as those of 1 an OK team, and all are so arranged as to give the idea that when the press starts the stool and Its occupant will be thrown to the ground. Put into words the cartoon asserts to the world that the press is above the law and greater in | strength than the Government
 l No self-respecting people will permit l such an attitude to be long maintained. 1 In England a century ago the offender and his head stuck upon a pole without the gates In America today this Is the kind of arrogance which goeth before a fall.
 If such abuse of the privileges allowed l to the press is to go unpunished, if such tales are permitted to be poured into the ears of men and to be profitable. 1t Is idle to contend that reputable newspapers can maintain their purity.
 We have rarely seen weaker or less creditable reason given by any Governor for his approval of a law. He cites sev- eral instances of what he is pleased to consider the profiigacy of the press, but I we are constrained to believe that he was governed by personal pique, caused l by the cartoon ridiculing himself, of which he speaks in the above extracts
 He had the bill before him about a month | before signing it. During that time many prominent newspaper men appeal ed to him not to approve it. Some of | them were connected with influential Re publican papers which had been friendly | to him and his administration. They ex- piained to him the gross injustice which would be done to the daily papers. and the blow which such law was striking at the freedom of the press, and implored him to veto it.
 Their arguments did no good. He had been carteoned by the newspapers aud
 with the malice and nieanness of a little
 mind. he approved law which is more dangerous to free speech than were the
 famous "alien and sedition' laws of the II elder Adams. His assertion that the
 newspapers of the country were respon-
 sible for the assassination of two Presi-
 dents is a base islander for which a libel
 suit ought to lie against him. No two
 Presidents the country has had were
 treated with more kindness and consider
 ation than were Garfield and Mckinley,
 and it is as absurd as 1t is unjust to
 charge that Guiteau and Czolgosz were
 inspired by the newspapers to commit
 their cowardly and brutal acts. If there
 were a law authorizing it, the Governor
 should be prosecuted for islander.
 We freely admit that certain newspa- pers publish cartoons which we would
 gladly see discontinued, not because they
 injure the individuals at whom they are
 aimed, but because they are discredit- able to American journalism. If the reading public would refuse to patronize
 papers which make a business of print
 ing pictures which are disgraceful, il
 would serve them right, but this Penn
 sylvania law is not the way to go at it.
 The whole truth of the matter is that
 this law was enacted in the interest of
 the boodlers, the bribers and the treas-
 ury looters of the State. No State in the Union is cursed with more thorough
 ly disreputable politicians and officials
 than Pennsylvania. There is no depths
 of venality and rascality too low for
 some of the Republican bosses to de-
 scend to, and they have felt the sting of
 fearless newspaper criticism until even
 their thick hides writhe under the just
 punishment. Now they propose to save
 themselves and to get even with their
 critics by ehacting a law behind which
 they can entrench themselves and carry
 on their nefarious practices undisturbed.
 While they care little for popular opin-
 ion, they do shrink from having them
 selves held up to public scorn through the pencil Of the cartoonist.
 We do not believe 1t IS possible for such
 a law to be enforced or to remain long on the statute books. The Alien and
 Sedition laws, of which we spoke above,
 were enacted in 179S, during the Presl-
 dency of John Adams, and were partly