The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1909-06-18
HOUSE BILL NO SIS

pracCce the very provisions Wnlcn the
above bill contains, so far as political
or other matter of similar nature is
concerned. 1t has been rule of this
paper that no paid political article or
cartoon to go into the Journal without
being labelled as an advertisement,
unless the earmarks were so plain
that a label was not necessary. We
think, therefore, that the provisions
of the bill, so far as they affect polit-
ical publications, are good, and they
ought to be practiced by every news
paper whether required to do so by
law or not.-Pensacola Journal
Not for a moment do we question
the Journals statement nor cast the
suspicion of a doubt upon its SINGER
ity, yet when it made its discovery of
a populist editor that it wanted to
foist upon the democratic party Of
this state for candidate for governor it
occurs to us that if it had had its eulo-
CYSTIC articles in his behalf branded,
This is an advertisement" it would
have struck on our ears like the tin
tintabulations of a bell. If the arti-
cles were not paid for they ought to
have been.
The Ocala Banner does not make
any pretentions to more virtue nor
more wickedness than its contempOr-
aries, but it has never seen the day
when it thought it necessary to tag"
its articles, and it has been born and
bred in too high a mold to have seen
day that it has not felt like resent
ing as an insult an insinuation to do
so.
In the primary campaigns this pa
per stated in the outset that all arti-
cles, except the editorial utterances
of the editor, would be charged for at
so much per line. So it was under
stood by its readers that all articles
bearing upon the questions at issue
were furnished by the parties inter
ested, and in no sense reflected the
sentiments of this paper.
So when the laudatory articles we're
sent out from the bureaus of the va
rious candidates telling what great
men the candidates were it was done
in recognition of this rule.
When was it that a miller was not
allowed to charge his toll? And when
was it that in doing so he was looked
upon with suspicion?
1t is a time-honored custom, not
more honored in the breach than in
the observance.
All the grist passing through the
Ocala Banner hopper. whether for
Gilchrist. Stockton or Broward, the
customary toll was charged. Our
readers so understood it. There was
not a particle of deception about it.
Indeed, we had to do it in very self-de-
tense, else we should have had ma
terial enough to have kept a dozen
presses busy, and if we had made dis
examinations by printing some man.
uscripts and rejecting others we
would have had troubles, like the sins
of Cain, greater than we could bear"
The pot metal that threw a halo of
greatness over Mr.. r. Hudson Burr,
dazzling in grandeur the toga of a Ro-
man. senator, although untagged, did
not escape the fixed penalties, and
this extraordinary conversion of the
raw material into the finished product
was done for a stipulated sum in cold
cash.
If it be sin to manufacture states
men out of very raw material, griev-
ously has this paper suffered for it.
But retracing its steps to the orig
inal proposition: This paper resents
being tagged. If it prints a cartoon
of a horse it does not feel that the
intelligence OF its readers require
that it shall bear the tag, This is a
horse!"
And it feels, too, that its readers.
or perhaps the most of them, are edu-
Gated up TO the point so that they can
distinguish between the genuine ring
of an editorial production and the
captivating, oily nothingness of a pat
ent medicine advertisement.
This paper believes, and shall con-
tinue to believe in the old doctrine of
a free and unshackled press. 1t be-
lieves that liberty is menaced when
ever the liberty of the press is sought
to be circumscribed or hampered in
any way.
History states that liberty shrek
ed when Kosciusco fell"
IT will soon be stated. we fear, that
poor liberty will weep until her eyes
are sore whenever a state legislature
meets.
Good old Horace Greeley was right
when he proclaimed: I'VE are gov
erned too much."
Pastor RusselPs sermons, now a !