Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1908-07-12
FREE SPEECH

| livery good citizen of Los Angeles
| II should take an interest in the fact
that local constituted authorities
seem to be running amuck on the ques-
ton of free speech-that is to say, they
are plunging along, injuring some
champions and practicers of free
speech, and letting others go scot-free.
and, deplorable to relate, the speakers
of the weaker and gentler sex. wives
and mothers, have been selected for
punishment, while husky, healthy men
have been allowed to speak where and
when they wished, without as much as
hint of police interference. Why this
discrimination? Why arrest scholarly,
refined, delicately nurtured women,
mothers of families and irreproachable
members of society, and allow men to
exercise with impunity the right of free
speech? 1t is evident the police have
thought better of their expressed in
tention to charge the Socialists with
obstructing the streets, and with hon
esty and frankness which we commend
heartily have reverted to their first po-
sition, which is, that the accused per-
sons had no right to deliver public
addresses to audiences of Los Angeles
citizens without first consulting city
hall and police headquarters and OBJ
tanning an official permit. We will not
now enter at length into the question
of the discrimination made by the au-
thorities between Socialist speakers and
others. Salvation Army speakers,
evangelists and other street orators are
not interfered with. MONDAY street
meetings at city hall are not inter-
fered with. OF course that is all right,
and we hope our position on the matter
will not be misconstrued. We are glad
some street speakers who are trying
to do a good work in this community
are not interfered with by the authori-
ties. But we think the same sanity
and poise which have characterized
official treatment of religious, evangel-
istic and other bodies should character
lie also the treatment of the disciples
of new school of political and social
thought, to whom that form of political
and social thought is as dear as was
Christianity to the early Christians
who were prosecuted by the Romans,
or as was Americanism to the early
Americans who were prosecuted by the
Tories. (Not by the British. There
were thousands of American Tories.
and at the beginning of the Revolution
many of them were in office. There are
still many Tories in the United States.
They have changed their name, but
not their nature.) without discussing
any further the question of official dis
elimination between some kinds of
public speaking out of doors and other
kinds of public speaking out of doors,
we call attention to the amazing fact
that the scene of the arrest of the free
speech martyrs of Los Angeles was
winston street, east of Main, where.
for the same reason that 1t is impossi-
BILE to catch snakes in ireland, it is
impossible to obstruct traffic How
ever, in order to support in some para
doxicaI Alice-in- Wonderland way his
statement on the witness stand, the
chief of police evidently has told the
patrolmen at Seventh and Main to keep
hands off the Socialists, for there has
been no attempt to arrest men who
have spoken there, although mere hui
man beings, not gifted with official
acumen, might think there was more
possibility Of an obstruction Of traffic |
at busy Main and Seventh streets than