The Commonwealth. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1911-1914, 1913-10-02
CAPITALIST PRESS ON FREE
SPEECH.

Seattle seems unfortunately doomed
always to have someone in some posi-
ton of authority to do the wrong
thing The Seattle potlatch disturb
ance was doubly accumulated by the
needless zeal of Mayor Cotteril and
now his mantle seems to have de-
scended upon Judge HUMPHREYS of the
King county superior court. If there's
anything calculated to stir dissenslon
and to cause one to question the
soundness of judicial rulings and
judicial logic some of the latter's re-
cent orders and bench polemics re-
garding street speaking, the sale of
pamphlets he deems undesirable, the
powers of courts and what contempt
toward them is, is sufficient.
There is a certain class of malcon-
tents who try vigorously to make free
speech" and free press" an issue,
for an issue is what they sorely need,
and there is great deal of miscon-
ception regarding both. The anarchist
says free speech is the right to say
anything, anywhere. Back in the
Middle West there is or has been a
so-called free press" fight, which
means, only, that a certain publica-
ton wished the right to print salacious
stuff that 1t might coin the yearnings
of the prurient minded into money for
its Golfers. To call an attack on such
an offense a free press is a travesty
on decency and common sense.
Similarly the free speech" advocate
believes If he's not allowed to make
nuisance of himself the offended heav-
ems should fall to show their just re-
sentiment. But his position is as absurd
as would be his insistence that the
privacy of home life has proper place
on the street corners and that anyone
interfering would be interfering with
his personal liberty" Your free
speech" man of this type is a selfish
egotist who believes the world should
make itself plant to him and his DEM
agogic confidence in his own array of
isms.
Yet the right to criticise, in type or
in speech, should be very free. Criti-
cisms of men and things you every
day hear may be nauseating to you,
not because you disagree with them
but because of the prejudice and
malice they show. Yet to try to curb
them would be unjust and harmful in
the end. The world is more or less of
a battle-ground and if truth is to pre-
vail it must meet and overcome even
the most outrageous opponents. He
places a great responsibility upon him
self who locks up truth and says that
here is an opponent so preposterous
and yet so malignant that it would be
folly for truth to be permitted out in
the open to join in combat with it.
These self-appointed custodians Of
truth have been to blame for much of
the worlds misery.
Judge HUMPHREYS seems inclined to
pose as one of these custodians. He's
in grave danger of running to one ex-
IRENE just as far as cranks who ap-
pear before him run to the other. And
this is strange in view of the fact, If
memory serves rightly, that Judge
HUMPHREYS was a popular" candidate
for the King county judgeship.
The right to talk freely and per-
haps unthinkingly is an excellent
safety valve. Courts and officials who
try in any degree to suppress this
right, except to prevent it from be-
coming a nuisance and to see that it
doesn't descend to mere license, what
ever may be their intentions, eventual
ly do wrong to the communities in
which they are active.-Everett Daily
Herald.