The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1911-01-08
rescntation of the people in municipa
affairs.
GRoUCHEs OF THE GREAT.

The Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court of Nevada appears to have a
Crouch against the newspapers. He
announces that he will ask to have
the Legislature Of Nevada pass law
"making criminal libel grounds for a
plea Of iustifiable homicide That is,
he would allow any man afflicted with
homicidal mania to plead that he had
been libeled in a newspaper as jus,
| tification for homicide he has com
mitted. This would make the murderer
the judge of whether he had been Grim
inally lbeled or not. in the first place;
and would allow him to plead his own
Interpretation Of the alleged libel as
an excuse for the murder. Surely moth.
ing but the madness OF prejudice against
newspapers would incite any man Of
the standing that a Chief Justice ought
to have, to utter barbaric sentiment
like that 1t would necessarily follow
from the PRONUNCIATION made by Ne
vada s Chief Jusice that if any one
slandercd another, either through speech
or writing, the one who considered
himself slandered would have the right
TO kill the slauderer, combining in his
person the offices of Judge, jury, and
executioner. Surely the madness of
prejudice could go no further than the
utterance Of the Chief Justice Of Ne
vada, and the necessary corollaries that
would spring therefrom. 1t is possible,
of course, that the Chief Justice was
misunderstood, or was not in q condi.
tion to express his real sentiments as q
iurist, If SO, perhaps he could be In
a way excused.
That great men are subject to lapses
from sound judgment, appears not alone
in Chief Justice James j. Sweeney
of Nevada. A story came recently from
Washington that Chief Justice White
and Justice Harlan Of the u. s. Su-
preme Court narrowly escaped being
run down by recklessly driven auto
mobile, which dashed into Pennsyl-
vania Avenue from a side street which
they were starting to cross. The es-
cape Of Justice Harlan was reported
to have been extremely narrow. and
while his dignity as Justice of the
great court of the country did not per-
NIT his use Of language such as the
man on the street would impulsively
utter. what he said was no less en-
phaitc. On catching his breath after
make prophecy and proceeded to
put that prophecy into the following
words:
Some day a real man from the West
from the plains-from that section of the
country where men do not permit other
men TO trlfle with their feelings-some
day such man will come TO Washing
ton. He will walk down Pennsylvania
avenue, Just as you and | are walking
AS he starts across the street auto
mobile will come bowling along at break
neck speed, and come within an inch OF
taking off a leg. IL Will be an old story
with the driver, but new one with the
man from the West will pull his shooting
iron from his pockets and fill the reck-
less driver full OF holes, and, judge
though ! am, l believe the man from the
West Will go scot free.
Now it is quite impossible that JUS
tice Harlan really meant that as a
iurist he would act on what he said,
or that he thought that man could
shoot down reckless chauffeur in the
street and 60 scot free. His express
sion, made in sudden heat, can in a
way be excused, and it surely fits
the case with close and snug fit
that is fine. Justice Sweeney Of Ne
vada ls not so excusable, because so
far as shown there was no inciting
cause for his frantic language. There
does not appear to have been any libel
committed upon him, nor is any rea-
son shown why he should have been
stirred up in the way that the report
indicates. There is this in common be-
tween him and Justice Harlan, how
ever, that when men are stirred TO an.
ger, even though they be great iu-
dicial lights, they ought not to be held
to too strict an accountability for their
language.