The White Pine news. [volume] (Ely, Nev.) 1906-1910, 1909-11-07

editors, publishers or plain citizens.
The contention of the government
was that the utterer of such criti-
cisms, assuming them to be libelous,
could be indicted and tried as for a
separate offense in every place where
the alleged ~defamatory matter might
be circulated. 1t was attempted IN
this case to hale the offending pub
Usher from his home in Indianapolis
to Washington and subject MIN 10
arrest and trial at the national cap
ital. If this could be lone in one
instance it would be possible to do
the same in every other. Any editor
in a remote city or village, who might
say something displeasing OF the
president and his circle of c~onfidants,
as the Indianapolis News man did,
might be dragged to Washington TO
give an accounting in an atmosphere
surcharged with officialism and the
instinct of time-serving.
The bureaucracy which is develop
ing at the seat of the government
would thus be empowered to compel
its critics to stand trial in a court
of its own selection. The offender
would not be judged by a jury of his
yicinage; it might even happen That
a centralized bureaucracy would pro-
cure the enactment of laws giving
a criminal character to acts which IN
the place where they are committed
are innocent and lawful. Equal wrong
would be done, however, through the
MULTIPLICATION of a single offense by
giving a thousand courts in as many
different localities jurisdiction over
the same. The publisher of a news
paper or the printer of a pamphlet
might be prosecuted consecutively
in each of the counties of all the
states wherein a copy of their al
legged libels happened to circulate.
Judge Anderson, of the United States
District Court at Indianapolis, was
not impressed by n~ew-fangled notions
of lese majestic. He held that a news
paper is published at the place where
it is printed and from whence II Is
distributed; and, if it contain libel
GUS or maliciously defamatory mat
ter, the offense must be prosecutee
there; and it can be prosecuted now
where else. mis- crime, II n nave
beer committed, is a single crime for
which the offender a be tried only
once. This is good common sense as
well as good law, and the decision
gives a quietus to the unreasonable
and mischievous rule sought to be
established by the government.
Incidentally, the court gave express
sion to some old-fashioned ideas re-
garding the functions of a free and
fearless press. ut is the duty OF a
newspaper" says Judge Anderson,
ito print the news and tell the truth
about it." In it's comments on matters
of public concern it is not only the
privilege, but the duty, of a news
paper to call a spade a spade and a
thief a thief; and if a public func-
tionary comport himself like an IN
human animal it is the part of an
independent and honest journal to
represent him in his true figure and
colors. So that there be no wilful
untruth and no mere personal NAL
ice in the published representation
there would be no libel. By the way,
the court intimates that the sup
p%ressions of truth connected with the
Panama canal deal justified sus-
picion, and that the differences drawn
were possibly not too strong. The
sale OF the United States for $4O,-
100000 of a property for which
spectators in canal shares, who were
in a position to be preinformed of
the intentions of this government, are
reported to have paid only $4,000
600, may after all have been truly
| characterized as a swindle.-Phila-
delphia Record.