Bisbee daily review., 1906-04-10
JEFFERSON AND THE PRESS.

While the people are discussing the newspapers-and when are they rot? it would delight the soul of Thomas Jefferson to know that the newspaper press has become probably the most potent factor in the governing of the United States.
 The founder of the democratic party had such faith in the honesty and good sense of the great body of the American people that he was sure the government could not long go wrong while they were fully informed of the dcings of their servants in public of flee. Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe is an aphorism in which he summed up the whole of his philosophy with respect to publicity, says the St. Louis Republic. Julius Caesar must have held much the same sentiments when he tried to check the corruption of the Roman Senate by causing a daily bulletin of its proceedings to be posted in the Forum Acta Diurna, the Days Do- ings, Caesars bulletin, was called, and it may be set down as the first daily newspaper known to history.
 That the people should know all the time what their legislative and exec utive officers are doing, and why, was Q cardinal tenet of Jenerson's politi- cal faith. His preventive for the vio- lent outbreaks which have shaken CT overthrown European governments E-as to give the people full informa- ton Of their affairs through the chan nel of the public papers. and to con- trive that those papers should pene- trate the whole mass of the people. Therefore, Jefer~an says in a letter 70 Edward Darlington: Were it left to re to decide whether we should have a government without newspa- pers, or newspapers without govern ment, should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter" And he would have the public school go along with the newspapers, for he adds: But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable Of reading them"
 Public men who smart under de served criticism might read with ad- vantage the few words in which lief ferson declared hiTuself for freedom of the press and against all oppressive measures ito silence by force and not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents" This expression was called forth by the sedition law of John Adams admins tration, which imposed severe pen alties of fine and imprisonment for alleged harsh criticism of legislative, executive or judicial officers, written or spoken.
 Seven years previously Jefferson had written at Monticello that "No government ought to be without cen sors; and when the press is not free no one ever will be. If virtuous, it need not fear the fair operation of attack and defense. Nature has given to man no other means of sitting the truth either in religion, law or poli- tics"
 Jefferson knew very well that the press, being a human institution, could never be perfect That it could be scurrilous at times and at others unreliable he knew from the attacks upon himself printed in Fenno's Ga zette and other sheets. And still he held that it would be better to get along without government than with out newspapers to let the people know what their government is do- ing.
 He knew, what every experienced newspaper man knows today, that such evils are cured by the freedom of reply and of counter attack. He knew. as the newspaper world of to- day well knows. that malice and un-