The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-06-02
That Alone Spells Peo-
pies Safety.
TO JAIL ON PRINCIPLE
The Remarkable Testimonial OF the
Confidence of the People
in Mr.. Daniels
Course.

The proceedings in attachment Tor
contempt in the criminal court mere
yesterday, as a result of which Edllor
Josephus Daniels is now in CUSTODY
for failure to pay the $4,000 line m
posed by the court raise question
that presses vitality home to the great
mass of the citizenship of the entire
country at large.
The merits of the particular contro-
versy at ISSUE the result thereon, the
payment or non-payment of the fine
imposed, or the detention or enlarge
ment of the editor who has been at
tached are matters of relatively llltie
moment to the people generally OF 10
Mr.. Daniels in particular. After the
sentence of the court was announced
here yesterday, it was as though an
extremely desirable issue of bonds
were being offered for public subscrip-
ton, No sooner had the sentence OF
the court fallen from Judge Purnelfs
lips than men began to fight their way
through the crowded court to the side
of the prisoner, with money and
checks i'm their hands, with the hope
1 of being among the first to contribute
to the payment of what they consld-
cred to be a fine arbitrarily imposed
ance of q conscientious duty. The is
sue was soon subscribed fifty-fold. On
the streets the attorneys for the re-
spondent were held up at every step
with offers of assistance. Men of all
classes clamored to help-the man
with one dollar in his pocket and the
man with his thousands in the bank.
There were several offers from indi-
viduals to produce at once the full
amount; there We're others who in
sisted upon undertaking a popular
subscription and heading the list with
substantial donations. 1t must have
been an inspiriting demonstration to
the quiet hammered man in the crash
suit and the SLOUGH hat who, the CEN
ter of a popular upheaval sat in the
Federal court building an honored
prisoner of war.
But what Mr.. Daniels saw was this:
That payment of the fine would let
him go back to his family and his
tripod, but it would not assure him the
free exercise of his duties as an editor.
IL would mean that he must labor in
the future with the menacing sword
ever palpitating in the air above
his desk. 1t would mean that when
ever he penned paragraph he must
pause ar conSider-nOt whether
ustfsefer~~aS a wrong to be attacked,
or a conspiracy to be disclosed, or an
infringement of the peoples rights, or
Il jeopardy of their property or iber-
ties to be criticized, or prevented-but,
forsooth. whether the honest line that
he drafted might call upon
himself and his paper the wrath and
instant punishment of some one of the
creatures of the people, who, having
out-grown the source of his authority,
might have lost in the sense of his
own importance, the true proportion
nf ma nc in "a
world
1t was the realisation of these facts,
of the great principle that underlies
them, that prompted Mr.. Daniels to
refuse the payment of the fine and to
meet the inevitable alternative of at
least a temporary imprisonment.
There is no appeal in contempt. To
get a hearing on the merits through
habeaS corpus proceedings there must
have been Imprisonment. And the
knowledge of this fact and the desire
to have the question of the liberty of
the press settled at once and for all
time were the considerations that
have made JosephuS Daniels tonight a
prisoner ian a cause that is as dear to
the hearts of the people as that for
which the Confederate soldier fought
and languished in the pest holes of
the Northern prisons.
This question of the liberty of the
press is one that is eternally assaulted
and eternally triumphant Around it
have clustered the germs of all pro-
gressive revolutions. From it has
sprung and been maintained the prin-
ciple of popular liberty, of that per-
sonal freedom that makes for sound
sleep % nights and an open face and
a straight flung eye by day. In its
right and liberal construction rests the
stability of all government. 1t is the
force that makes society stick togeth-
err. 1t is the means by which the SOW
ereign people may peaceably make
known their will or trumpet their de-
mands 1t is the enemy of oligarchy
of clique, of schism, of wrong and
chicanery and of the motives that
crawl underground to undermine and
destroy the larger common veal. In so
far as it is free. in so far as it may
hold up it's head and speak it's mind
and biaZon the facts forth into the
lime-light for the public gaze-in SO
far is the press of utilityNto the public,
to the people whose mission it is to
serve. If, on the other hand, it must
bow and Scrape and dodge, must be
subservient, must watch the official
nod, must hesitate in quaking fear and
apprehension lest its notes fall too
harshly on some Supersensive ear,
its usefulness is gone. 1t might as
we'll be dead and buried. Its editors
should drop their pens and grab the
plough and hoe to dig from mother
earth the taxes with which to feed the
birds of prey that ever hover near
and sweep closer and closer as each
blow is dealt to what to them is their
only scare-crow.
At Washington there sits a
court that is the greatest in the
world, a court that is above the
government, whose membership is
composed of ripe scholars OF
judicial mind who sit apart beyond
prejudice. beyond and above con-
tempt, the servitors of Justice. 1t is
to be hoped, and it may be confident
" expected, that this great court will
speak the law in this case. And when
il speaks. the liberty of the press will
be defined so that he who runs may
read Let it be hoped that the read
ing of that opinion will be to the eff
feet that nothing in this great country
Is above an honest criticism; that nc
man shall soar from the soil from
which he gets his power to the infalli-
BILE heights of the sky; that honest