Los Angeles herald., 1910-10-25
FEDERAL LAWYERS
FIRE FINAL SHOTS
Government EndeavorS to Uphold
Validity of Charges Against
Press Publishing Co.
ASSOCIATED Press)

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24.-The final
attempt of the federal government to
uphold the validity of the indictment
in the New York federal courts of the
Press Publishing company in charge
of libel growing out OF the publica-
tion of an article in the New York
World on the purchase of the Panama
canal, was made today in oral argu-
ment before the supreme court of the
United States.
The article in question was printed
in the heat of the presidential cam
paign in 1908. It charged that Charles
p. Taft, Douglas Robinson and Will
liam Cromwell, with ]. p. Morgan
and others, obtained control of the
Panama canal route for $3,00O,O 600, and
through their intimacy with Theodore
Roosevelt, then president, and William
H. Taft, then secretary of war, sold
the property to the United States at
a profit of $36,000,000. Much attention
was paid to the case by President
Roosevelt during his administration, a
special message being sent to congress
on the subject
DECLARE LOWER COURT ERRED
Mr.. McReynolds. in his opening
statement, said the lower court had
erred in quashing the Indictment
against the Press Publishington COM
pany on the charge of having cir
culated libelous articles at the West
Point military reservation. Mr.. Nicoll
spoke of the case as a illegal curios-
ity." He said Attorney General Bona
parte had made the revelation that in
1898 congress, without intending It.,
really had re-enacted the sedition laws
of 1898. In closing Mr.. Nicoll said:
"As a matter Of fact, the prosecu-
tion was premature, born before its
time, belonging to a new dispensation
when the federal government shall
have taken to itself all power and
authority and states been reduced to
mere geographical districts; when the
federal tribunals shall no longer try
cases in accordance with precedents
and the law, but according to the
needs of the time as interpreted TO
them by some great steward of the
public welfare"
CRITICIzEs ACTS OF CONGRESS
Just before coming to his peroration
Mr. Nicoll had presented to the court
in dramatic fashion an argument to
show that the whole history of the
country condemned the construction of
the act of congress desired by the gov
ernment He dwelt first upon the un-
popularity of the sedition act of 1913,
designed to punish the publication or
articles tending to stir up sedition.
Then he came down to 1880. when, he
said, James Buchanan, later president
of the United States, in the trial OF
Judge Peck before the United States
senate, had argued that the founders
of the constitution had been afraid
to give the federal government any
authority over the subject of libel.
Finally, he took up President Roose-
velt's special message to congress in
regard to the alleged libel He desig-
mated it as curious reading"
For the next few minutes his voice
rang through the court room as he
read q portion of the message holding
it to be a "high national duty to
bring to justice him who "wickedly
and without one shadow of justifica-
tion seeks to blacken the character OF
reputable private citizens and to con-
vict the government of his own coun-
try in the eyes of the civilized world
of wrong doing or the basest and
foulest kind"
In his concluding arguments Mr.,
McReynolds told the court that the
government was concerned in protect
ing the people residing in federal
jurisdiction. In rebuttal to the a<gu-
ment that the prosecution should have
been brought where the alleged libel
was printed, or, in other words. In
state courts, he contended that the Of
Tense of libel was not limited to the
mere act of printing, but included the
act of making it public.
The court took the case under ad-
visement. An opinion may not be rem
dered for several weeks.