The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-06-25
NEWSPAPERS AND COURTS.

Judge De Bolt cOuid I!dIulS IL
been serious in his remarks, made IRON
the Circuit bench yesterday, touchihe
+ba motive of the Advertisers leading
article about his duty in the Kunalae
and Johnson cases. He spoke OF 1t as
an insult. Judge De Bolt, of all men,
ouebt to know that this journal has
more than once sacrificed its opportu-
mites as a newspaper out of consid-
GRAFTON for his dignity and that 1t Is
az far from any attitude of insult to
him as he should be to it. But let TINS
consideration pass. What we propose
to say here has only to do with the
freedor of criticism about the acts
or policies or possibilities of public
men which the American press enjoys
and, when honest, exercises for the
public welfare; a freedom which
means much to every citizen and when
it should be the part of every good
man to maintain.
A Judge is no more sacred from pub
lie comment, save when it is made Of
dent. a Governor or a member OF
legislative body. It is as much the
right of the press to tell him where his
duty Ues-save as saying so may in
fuence a jury or challenge his power
to punish for actual contempt-as II is
the right of the press to expostuiate
with the Chief Magistrate of the ma
ton or with Congress or State or
Territorial executive or Legislature. A
Judge is only above criticism in the
narrow limits of his court and While
he obeys the law; he is not an IN
fallible pontiff who can, when the plain
wind and his fictitious sanctity, let
loose the bias. of accommodation.
There are examples in point which
show the rue relation between the
citizen a:,i the judge. When Theodore
Roosevelt began his public career by
exposing and chastising Judge West
brook of the New York Supreme Court
he indicated one of the rights of the
|
him and did something for him after
ward Another result was a reformed
judiciary. When the New York Times de-
rnanded that Judges Barnard and Car
dozo should either do right in the
Tweed cases or stand an impeachment
trial. it did a plain civic duty and at
the same time mounted to the highest
level Of American Journalism. Today,
the st. Louis Globe-Democrat, in fol-
lowing the Missouri Doodle cases like a
bloodhound through the courts is
force for justice scarcely less efficient
than District Attorney Folk himself
and far more efficient than some of the
boss-ridden judges who have the cases
to try. And it is entirely within it's ,
constitutional rights. These examples
supply standard rules of conduct for
an honest press and Judge De Bolt,
whom we believe to be an honest man,
may well ponder them before again
calling to account a journal which
urges him to do his duty despite the
sophistry of lawyers who make it their s
business to rescue criminals from pun
ishrnent land of whose health thieves
ask before they begin to steal.''
Let the Advertiser repeat, for the
twentieth time, that it means to be as
candid about the judicial department
of this government as it is about the
other and coordinate branches. It's
experience of the past few years
teaches it that labor in getting rid
of bad judges and securing good ones
is not necessarily in vain. But for it's
attacks upon intrenched chicanery on
the bench of Hawaii, the opportunity
for Judge De Bolt himself would not
have come. 1t. was the sentiment so .
created which got behind him and put
him upon a woolsack which the bood
lers in and out of ermine had hoped
was once there, however. this paper
sought no favors from him and ex-
empted him from no criticism which it
thought he deserved; but it has never
1nSulted MIN ana does not expect TO
do so. At the same time it intends to
make the freest and hopes to make the
wisest use, in its discussion of public
men and measures, of the liberty con-
ferred upon the press by the Constitu-
ton of the United States.
Honolulu hasn't forgotten how to
celebrate the Fourth and proposes this