The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-11-13

! kSSt N1 " - tSRt RtSSSAtsSNN'S ~f@FcStsys NN - cordingiy, a request was made of Mir.
 J. L. Holloway. Chairman of the Pro- hibition Campaign Committee, who pre- sided over the meeting and introduced the speaker. that an opportunity se given 2 representative of The Advsr- tiser to appear betors his committee 70 make 6 protest and an appeal to the n. Nr. Holloway got sons os his Commit ice .ng.tter on Sun fay night, and .ae protest and appeal were made. The members of the Committee received this protest very kindly. expressed individ- ualiy u cir lack of sympathy with Mrc. curtiss attack, and decided that it vas hest fo: them to taka rp the mt :,er with iier before deciding on any ae | ,n themselves.
 On Monday representatives of the Committee had a conference with Mrs. Curtis. and finally secured from her . signed statement qualifying her re- marks. but not retracting them. or ex- pressing any regret for them. This the Committee delivered to The Advertiser without any accompanying statement from themselves. The Advertiser re- garded this bare statement of Mrs. Cur tis as inadequate and unsatisfactory. It was not what had been asked. An- other appeal was made to the Commit tee. through one of its members, that they should as a body make public & statement upon the subject, similar in tone to individual private expressions. This was not secured Monday night. Snd Mrs. Curtis's statement was not printed yesterday.
 Over two days have passed, and the Committee has not so far seen fit to accede to The Advertisers request,awe have no authority to state their req sons for this silence. whatever they may be. Mir. Holloway. their Chairman, has been out of town since Monday af- ternoon. but no request has been made of us to wait for his return This pa per feels that, in justice to itself, it can not wait longer to defer comment on the incident. A newspapers reputation is it's most sacred possession, it's chief capital in trade. The Advertiser cannot afford to let ISdch a public arraignment go unchailenged.
 In the first place. The Advertiser re- pels in toto the gravamen of the attack made on it by Mrs. Curtis. This paper Is accurate and truthful. It undertakes to deal in truth all the time. and 1t does not knowingly or Intentionally print at any time anything 1t believes to be a lie. The liquor interest cannot buy The Advertiser. in the corrupt sense of the word, nor can any one else. It has not been even tempted by the liquor men, but 1t has been tempted more than once in the past by larger sums than the liquor men probably could raise now, and it has withstood those tempta- tions, This papers policies are always dictated by its intelligence. It's con science and its devotion to the best in- terests of this city and State as 1t sees them. It has fought for its convictions many a time at a great sacrifice of income and of other advantages. This has been it's record for over forty years under substantially a continuous man. agement, and 1t will be it's record for years to come. if God spares its present owners.
 Specifically, the matter quoted from Mrs. Curtis as the basis of her att
 tack. was advertising matter paid for by the opposition to prohibition. It was marked as advertising in the way customary with this paper for some years. It is our effort to see that all advertising is legal and free from slam derous utterances. but it is not our duty to verify the accuracy of every state- ment in an advertisement before 1t is printed. No newspaper in the country could undertake to do this; If 1t did, the customer would not want the space by the time the investigation was com
 pleted. Newspapers have to trust their patrons to a large extent just as all other business institutions do. Fur thermore, if there were any inaccurate statements in the matter quoted from, they were not necessarily lies.
 The Advertiser regrets exceedingly tbat the Prohibition Campaign Com mittee has made the bIunder of putting up such a hot-headed and unwIse advo- cate of their cause Such argume rents