Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1907-02-07
THE USE OF PRIVATE LETTERS
Inc vioiaters of Private Correspond
ence characterized.

Edward Everett Hale in the Chris
tian Register.-The duties of people
In modern life with regard to their
use OF private letters reduces itself
to question of morals rather than
one OF law. Perhaps as simple a
statement of the unwritten law of the
subject will be to say that a man who
makes public a private letter without
the permission of the writer is a
BLACKBOARD, rather than to say that
he is felon.
1t is true that the law of England
and OF America steadily holds to the
theory that the letter is the property
OF the man who writes it, and is not
the property of the man who receives
It, 1t has even been held in the
courts that the writer of letter NAV
obtain copyright upon it, though it
wels many years after it was written.
1t has Also been held that executors
or administrators may be compelled
to surrender letters to their writer's
In settling the estates OF persons de-
ceased
But there are now sad temptations
in the business. Thus a telegraph
operator has received and transmitted
message from one financier to an
other. The operator goes to his
lunch, and is offered hundred dol
lars by some one waiting for him who
wants to know what the message
was; and he takes the hundred dol
lars and violates his secret. The gem
eral verdict, even of the accom-
plished reader of these lines, will be
that the operator, man or woman, who
does this is a BLACKBOARD; but at the
same time, the general expression
will be that of the old joke: "You
must not expect all the virtues for a
dollar day." There Is, perhaps,
growing to be feeling that a tele-
graphic message is not confidential
So far as that feeling goes the public
conscience Is wounded Is it. per-
haps, possible that the old tone OF
feeling with regard to private CORES
pondence has been little relaxed
among people by such semi-publicity
given to telegraphic dispatches?
Would it not, perhaps, be possible
for the legislation of the country to
cover this difficulty? Would it not be
possible to prohibit telegraph com
panies or their servants from reveal
ing to any outside person the contents
of telegraphic messages by making
such revelation felony? If you sent
an operator to Jail for IL months
when he had revealed any secrets, a
certain disgrace would attach to the
revelation which would go far to Sc
cure this secrecy.
1t would be difficult however. to
carry such a statute so far as to
cover the important or the unim-
portant information given in private
letters. You could hardly say that a.
man should be sent to Jail because he
had said 1t is fine day in st. Louis
when he learned that from a private
letter. And you cannot legislate for
| one class of information unless YOU
include all classes. You are thrown
back, therefore, on the requisites in
tangible. if you please, but none the
less real, of honor and truth. You
are thrown back on the Golden Rule
People ask how you can punish an
offender. | think should say that
you might refuse to recognize him
except as yor would recognize a man
who he's irst come out from the
state-prison. He has of his own
volition put himself outside the class
rather vaguely known as gentlemen.
No priest who had received a con-
fession in the Roman Catholic church
would repeat that confession. even
under the requisition Of court The
same may be said of any clergyman in
any communion. | think that in some
oil our states the necessity Of such
privacy is recognized by statute.
Whether il is or is not the unwritten
law Is the same. Whoever does yio-
late the privacy OF correspondence in
tentionally takes himself out from
the body OF men who are to receive
any trust either in private or in pub
| lie service