Tonopah daily bonanza. [volume] (Tonopah, Nev.) 1906-1929, 1911-02-06
A SANDER Law.

California is agitating SANDER law such as
has been recently advocated in these columns
for Nevada and the present militant reform gov
efnor, johnson, has unhesitatingly given his in
dorsement to the propaganda. It is really a
matter OF surprise that statute against SANDER
similar to the one long in force against criminal
libel was not long ago adopted. 1t is GER
talnly not logical system Of jurisprudence
winch Furnishes the newspaper for doing what
the private individual may do with impunity-
especially when OF the two the wrong perpetrat-
ed by the individual is decidedly the more griev-
The published libel the victim can reach.
the responsibility for it can be fixed but the vic
tim OF the cowardly whispered SANDER is de-
tenseless and helpless-he is the last man in the
community to hear that his reputation has been
smirched
The code which regulates our relations with
our fellows, some may argue would make the
passage OF a SANDER law unnecessary No man
may be wronged in this manner long without
beng given the opportunity to right himself
Perhaps-and perhaps not We have in mind a
case OF Islander right here in Tonopah in which
the detamers were paid to do their infamous
work The victim tried to get evidence to go
before the grand jury only to discover that
there was no law under which he could prose
cute. Not only this, he was unable to get clue
TO the identity OF his slanderers One would
THINK that sense of fairness would prompt
someone, sooner or later, to appriSe the victim
OF what was going on-but no one did So There
IS an old rule OF common law which holds a
man innocent until proven guilty, but in SANDER
this doesn't hod-the whispered nuendo is
enough to convict a man. And men who pride
themselves ON their sense Of Justice their fair
ness, Will be the first to condemn man unheard
untrled
Some four or five years ago the grand Jury in
Cochlse county, Ariz., engaged with two i'm
portant cases One was that of a public official
who had bapn Stp tba ofL
other that OF man who committed perjury in
fling on public land. The latter was a wealthy
man Ihere was the same prosecuting witness
IN both cases. By some hocus pocus both men
escaped punishment and they then began sys-
tematle persecution of the prosecuting witness
Their malice baked at no means of retaliation
no SANDER was too low or too vile for them
to put in circulation, no base use to which money
could be put was beneath them The malice of
the two, amply backed by the wealth Of the one,
broke their victim. In three different business
enterprises was he forced to the wall. And
when, turing OF the persecution, and unable to
get legal proof that would convict his prosecutors
OF conspiracy, he left that section he was fol-
lowed by hrengs of the pair If he stopped
IN a strange town. it but time until the
men he had become acquainted with would begin
to manifest less cordialty-a word of SANDER
cautiously dropped here and there would do the
work. The deviltry of the proceeding would al
most pass belief were it not substantiated by a
hundred corroborative circumstances
In case such as this there must be some
means of redress provided If the law cannot
give a remedy for great wrong, then must
the victim become law unto himself. But it
should not be necessary for man to take the
law into his hands. For every wrong it is
presumed, the law has remedy; and if for
SANDER the remedy be lacking, let it be hoped
that the present legislature will make haste to
correct the omission