Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1907-06-13
Gagging the Press.

tor or the Appeal TO Reason, OF
Girard, Kansas, has been arrested
for circulating scurrilous, de-
famatory and threatening matter"
in that Socialist paper. This is
governmental blunder. Warren
has said nothing that has amount-
ed to sedition. The Mirror does
not think that Warren should be
arrested for anything he says,
while Senator Tillman goes about
preaching massacre and lynching
by innuendo. Warren has not
preached anarchy one-tenth as
virulent as Arthur Brisbane has
written in the Hearst papers in
New York, Boston, Chicago, San
Francisco and Los Angeles. If
Warren has DETAINED individuals
or institutions they may sue. If
he has impugned the integrity of
courts he has but expressed the
profound convictions of hundreds
of thousands of citizens who are
neither Socialists, nor Anarchists,
nor Nihilists. His paper is no
more sensational in his crusade to
save Haywood, Meyer and Petit
bone than are a dozen afternoon
papers in the big cities. He has
attacked the "Molly Mcguire" de-
tective, Mcfarland, who secured
the confession that imperils these
men. A million people think it
queer that the same man should
turn the same trick twice, should
by the same device bring to the
gallows men whose confidence he
had won, except upon the theory
that he got his price for framing
up the story. We admit that the
appeal to Reason has spoken harsh
ly of President Roosevelt, but no
more harshly than Roosevelt has
spoken Of Hartman, Meyer, Hay
wood and Pettibone, WI. Long,
Ex-senator Chandler and others.
The writer of this paragraph has
read the appeal to Reason quite
steadily since the Haywood case
has come into public attention,
just as he has made it point to
read Clarence S. Darrow's charm
ing story, "Farmington," as part,
SO to speak, of the broader res
gestae of the great case, and while
it has been, as we say, hot stuff on
behalf of the accused, it has not
been what could be called in
cendiary. The arrest of Warren
is another example of the arbitrary
censorship of the press recently
set up by the postal department.
1t is pusing farther the authority
claimed in the imprisonment of
Moses Harmon for writing in
LucJer-the light bearer-in be-
half of the right of the child to be
well born. 1t is an expansion of
the authority to stop mail frauds
and the circulation of undisguised
obscenities, and instruments or
medicines for the defeat of in
crease in the population, and it
attacks one of the most explicitly
guaranteed of all American rights
the right Of free press and free
speech. If it were not unlawful, it
would still be unwise-the course
of attempting to choke off Social
ism by killing its greatest organ.
This sort Of thing, in the first place,
makes more Socialists; and in the
second place makes Anarchists out
of Socialists. 1t intensifies, rather
than allays, discontent-and the
Mirror believes that discomfort is
only sign Of life and Of thought.
The arrest Of Mr.. Warren, we re-
peat, is a profound mistake upon
the part Of the authorities. If he
libels anyone his victims can pro-
ceed against him under the Aaw,
criminally as well as civilly. We
do not believe that arrest Of edi-
tors and suppression Of newspa-
pers to-day will prevent the spread
Of an idea, any more than the
burning of books and their writer's
Or the Sitting Of the poses ii The
sellers of books accomplished q