Arizona republican., 1903-02-24
To Justify Homicide for Sander.

The Hon. Balie Waggener, ieauei of the Kansas bar and general solicitor for the Missouri Pacific railway, is a member of the lower house of the legis- lature. Although a democrat, ana lonesome one at that, among so many republicans, MT. Waggener was mace chairman of the committee on Judlcl- ary out of deference to his profound legal learning, and also because or ms reputation for good common sense. MT Waggener has introduced numoer of bills to reform the laws of the Sun Howe state, and some of these he IS pressing for passage. One of his meas ures which is likely to cause a great deal of discussion throughout the coun- try is a bill to make malicious islander a cause for justifiabIe homicide. Pub lie men who have been outrageously slandered by vicious newspapers will be inclined to look upon MT. Wag- ge,er as a public benefactor, whatever the view of the general public may be. In support of his bill the Kansas lawyer says that entirely too many slahderous stories. are circulated in every community, damaging the repu- tations of innocent persons, and that the only way to prevent such tales being peddled about is to have a few killings and :or this reason he intro- drced the bill. MT. Waggener tells the Topeka Capital that he thinks the bill is Q good one, sensible measure, and he says he hopes to be able to secure it's passage. The bill provides:
 ..Homicide shall be deemed justifiable when committed in defense of the char acter or reputation of any such person. his wife, child, mother or any member of his family from or. against or in nconsequence of any islander or libel uttered. published orr circulated of or Bconcerning such person, his wife, child, mother, or any member of his family contemporary there is story out that an experience Waggener had last week was responsible for him introducing the bill. W. H. Stryker, editor of the
 
 per, came out in an article in his last issue charging the republican majority in the legislature with being eXtrava- gant and corrupt and winding up by saying that "Balie Waggener is the biggest thief in the legislature
 Waggener's attention was called to the article and he at once demanded a retraction from Stryker. Stryker wrote him letter stating that he didn't mean in his article to refer to him as an actual thief but as party thief of the same stripe as Hill and German. Stryker's letter didn't suit Waggener. He didn't consider it either an apology or retraction so he wrote out retraction and sent it to Stryker, notifying him that unless he signed it and ran it in his paper he would sue him for criminal libel. The retraction written by Waggener for Stryker to sign closed as follows:
 'In the last issue of this paper I said that Balie Waggener was a thief. In so saying I deliberately and mali ciously lied.''
 It would be interesting to note the result in Arizona of such a law as MT Waggener proposes for his state. For 50 many years that the memory oi residents does not run to the contrary limited number of Journalists" ir this territory have pursued a course which indicated a theory on their part that they had a formal license to slan- der and libel men of prominence, espe- cially If these men happened to hold office or be members of an opposite party in politics. Conditions in this respect have improved vastly, of course, because press writers of the class mentioned have been driven out of business by public opinion or have been forced to be decent most of the time or accept starvation as the alter native. It has been pointed out ire torial affairs that the total absence of homicides on account Of atrocious libel argued a remarkable degree of self restraint among our people, and a re- spect for law and order quite different from any such spirit found in the east and should be accepted as proof of a civilization for which the territory has received little credit abroad.
 Obviously, however. it might become necessary to revise this favorable opin- ion as to the peaceable inclina tions o1 the Arizona citizen were the law tc provide. as it were. an "open season for the slaughter of slanderers It is our guess that if this territory hat such statute as MT. Waggener offers to Kansas, some journalists would hide in the solitudes of the foothills most of the time-or mend their ways