New-York tribune., 1906-10-30
TNDELIBLE.

So Mr.. Hearst's friend, c. Francis Murphy, is
| getting sensitive! He has retained Mr.. j. w
| Osborne, Poor Jim" Of fragrant memory, to
| warn all the newspapers that they must stop the
| reproduction variation Of Mr.. Hearsts car
toon of Mr.. Murphy in prison stripes under
pains and penalties of the law Mr.. Murphy
does not like to see himself in prison garb. 1t
hurts his feelings. He thinks it tends to bring
him into greater contempt than he has hitherto
been held in by his fellow citizens. He says
that the striped cartoons are Hbellous. and we
believe he is right; for, while the truth is an
absolute defence against a charge Of libel, the
failure of Mr.. Hearst TO carry out his loud
threats actually to put the striped suit on Mr..
Murphy and his making a deal with him 10
get control of the courts instead, and so render
any such sartorial feat impossible, leave no
chance for publisher to justify on this ground.
IT, however, Mr.. Murphy is going to enter on
a career of litigation he should be impartial.
The statute of limitations has not yet given i'm
munity to Mr. Hearst, who was the originator
of the convict cartoon. The other newspapers
have not used the cartoon in any spirit of bit
terness toward Mr.. Murphy, but merely to re-
mind the public and Mr. Hearst of Mr.. Hearsts
own estimate of the man whom for his own
selfish purposes he chooses as a political patron
and partner. In the same spirit they have re
minded Mr.. Murphy that the man whom he asks
the people to make Governor of the Empire
State is, according TO the Murphy cartoons, the
man who melted the murder of President Nc
Kinley. Mr.. Murphy and his stripes are only
an illustration in the arguments of to-day. \
year ago they held the centre of the stage. Then
the attack upon him was. indeed. a libel Mr..
Hearst asked the city to vote against Mr..
Murphy's rule on the ground that he was thief
who ought TO be in Sing Sing The issue was in
a measure Mr.. Nurphy's eligibility for Sing
,dl,a.
acter, but Mr.. Hearst's sincerity. Yet Mr.
Murphy, who could then take blows and give
them, has now become tender, shrinking violet.
He could endure the violence of Mr.. Hearst's
abuse, but he cannot bear to be reminded Of it.
a friend of Mr. Murphy explains that last
year when the two present friends were shout
ing Thief" and "Assassin.' at each other Mr..
Murphy thought that the billingsgate was all
right. But now it is different" 1t is not so
much the libel, then. apparently that he objects
to- It is, perhaps, the emphasis that the present
reproduction of it puts upon the disgraceful
character of his deal with the original libeller
which troubles him. That is evidently getting
on his nerves and on Mr.. Hearst's The con-
tinued iteration of the facts that in Mr.. Hearsts
opinion Mr.. Murphy should be in stripes, and
that in Mr.. Murphy's opinion Mr.. Hearst is an
assassin, has made them both utterly contempt
ible in the eyes of all decent men, and may well
have driven them to desperation.
Mr. Hearst's panic has been clear for days.
His speeches and papers are one hysteric howl
of rage and abuse. No falsehOod is too paIpable.
no billingsgate too vulgar for their use. The
continued shrieking about Farley the strike
breaker being for Mr. Hughes in the face of
Farley's pronOuncing Of the statement false,
is only one of a series Of fakes so numerous that
they cannot be catalogued. Now Mr.. Murphy,
whose skin used to be too thick for any attack
TO pierce, rushes to prevent the republication Of
the old Hearst cartoons. He may stop them, but
it will do him no good. Those stripes are as
ndelible as the stripes the tiger. They are i'm
printed on every mental picture which the voter
has of the combination OF Hearst's thief and
Murphy's assassin" and Murphy cannot sue the
voter for the libel in his mind. Arm in arm, the
allies stand before the people, each in the char
acter given him by the other Each may cry,
"Out, damned spot" till doomsday, but each
spot is indelible. The dye which each threw at
the other might perhaps have washed out but
for the mordant Of their combination, which has
fixed the verdict of each upon the other as an
ineffaCeable infamy to both.