The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1909-03-08
LIBEL is BROADCAST
Publisher Should be Liable Wherever
Paper Circulates.

The editors of the New York World
and Indianapolis News, leading dem
ocratic newspapers. have been indict
ed by the grand jury of the District
OF Columbia, charged with criminal
libel because Of their reflections up
on the purchase OF the Panama canal.
The persons complaining of being H.
belled are Theodore Roosevelt, Will
liam II. Taft, Elihu Root, Douglas
Robinson. Charles p. Taft. ]. Pierpont
Morgan and William Nelson Crom-
well. These parties practically con
stitute the administration and the
agencies through which the canal deal
was engineered. These two newspa-
pers. charged the existence of a gross
scandal in connection with the canal
purchase, whereby much government
money went to persons other than the
real sellers. President Roosevelt in
a special message to congress denied
the charges, branded them as malici-
GUS falsehoods and limited at coming
prosecutions of the publishers. The
initial attempt to make the govern
ment itself the nominal plaintiff has
been abandoned. and the case will
come up in the usual form, the com
plainant seeking redress and a punt.
tive verdict as individuals, says the
Randolph Herald.
The World and News editors will
| fight the jurisdiction of the District Of
Columbia court on the ground that
the publication was in the states
where the respective papers are print
ed rather than where they are in cir.
culation. This is quite a fine point
of law. In the celebrated case of
Charles A. Dana, it was once deter
mined in favor of the editor. A pecu.
liar coincidence is that Mr.. Danas at
torney in that case, who made the con
vincing plea on this legal point was
/ Elihu Root, complainant in the
present suit.
If an editor can be hauled to any
part of the country, however, remote
and there put to trial for criminal II.
bel before a strange court and jury
merely because he mails or sends cop
les of his paper thither, however
small his circulation in that locality
II means hardship not put upon
any other class OF men, who, by the
precedent of centuries, are entitled &c
trial before a jury of the vicnage
The editor of this paper, for instance
who sends two or three copies to Alas
ka. could be summoned 5000 miles e
answer a libel suit and with what
show of success?
On the other hand her in Vermont
we have seen abuses resulting from
llbels circulated in this state by news
papers published beyond its borders
and its jurisdiction. During the ex
element over the Mary Rogers case
the grossest misstatements and sian
ders were scattered over the countr!
and throughout Vermont by the met
ropolitan press. acting with entire I'm
punity. The injured parties could no
well go to New York or Massachusetts
and obtain redress whore these news
papers were printed In fact the OF
Tense itself resulted more from th
circulation of those papers outsid
their own immediate locality thai
within Il.
r Between these two extremes tn
rule must be somewhere established
With present journalistic tendencies
would seem more productive Of benC
l fit, were that the basis OF determine
ton, to make the publisher liable 70
his utterances wherever his paper eli
culates. IL is usually true that tn
most injury from a newspaper II
comes right at home to the person !
belled, even though It's publlcatio
there Is limited In extent.