New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-01-26
The Tribune Wins Its Fight to
Maintain the Freedom of the
Press.

the United States handed down decision yesIer-
day sustaining US in our resistance to a formi-
dable process Of intimidation employed against us
nv the executive departments before the grand
Jury and in the lower federal courts
All the power Of the present administration was
exerted to coerce two members Of The Tribune's
staff, Mr.. Burdick and Mr.. Curtin, into giving
testimony which the Secretary Of the Treasury
assumed whether rightly or wrongly would
help him in disciplining Treasury employees sus
pected Of having divulged information about de-
partmental activities without authorization from
him AT his instigation the Department Of JUS
tice called Mr.. Burdick and Mr.. Curtin before a
federal grand jury, and the District Attorney for
this district demanded that they disclose the
sources Of the news which they had secured and
published about proceedings taken in certain
smuggling cases.
On their refusing to testify and claiming i'm
munity on the ground that what they said might
tend to incriminate them the Department of JUS
tiee resorted 20 the unusual expedient Of getting
pre-indictment and pre-conviction pardons for
them from the President and then claiming that
such pardons automatically invadated the i'm
munity plea The two witnesses declined to &C
cept pardons or to testify on the theory that they
had been pardoned, whereupon they were brought
before federal district judge in this district and
were adjudged in contempt Of court.
The peril Of such procedure to the liberty Of
the press is obvious.
What the Secretary of the Treasury and
the Attorney General combined to do (even
perverting the Presidents pardoning power
for that purpose) was to establish an IRON
clad official censorship within the executive
departments.
4 star chamber regime was TO be set up, under
which the public was to depend for all its news of
what the various branches Of the government
were doing on communicates colored to suit the
ideas Of department heads.
There is Treasury Department regulation
which forbds any employe 10 divuge information
Of public nature without proper authorization
from superior officer. That order may not
the legitimate activities of the press. But one
abuse Of the proper purposes of such provision
has been followed by another, and under this ad-
ministration it has been seized upon by officials
oyeranxious 10 regulate all the channels of pub
lefty in order to clap down the lid Of a universal
censorship, terrorize federal employees and prevent
newspapers from publishing news of an exclusive
and non-vised sort, even though it might deal
entirely with acts done by public officials In their
official capacities.
If the newspapers are to be debaned from
obtaining and printing news from source:
inside the government service the press
ceases to fulfil its duty as the free mouth.
piece of free people.
Criticism is smothered and publicity Is dis
armed as regulator of folly, incompetency or
corruption in the conduct of public affairs One
Of the invaluable safeguards of the democratic
system of popular responsibility, free speech and
free inquiry is surrendered at the behest of q
bureaucracy impatient Of criticism and greedy for
unrestricted power.
Relying on the freedom guaranteed to the press
in Anglo-Saxon countries, newspapers can defy
any attempted government censorship Of news af-
fecting governmental activities. But if newspa-
per men can be made 70 testify as 10 the sources
of their information all sources worth having
within the government will soon be closed. The
principle for which The Tribune has been con-
tending is the only ing which keeps the chan
nels of publicity open.
If pardons can be forced upon unwilling
newspaper representatives, the iron circle of
a bureaucratic censorship becomes complete.
That was the exact issue in The Tribune case.
We denied that Fictitious pardon utsef de-
coy for the purposes Of the prosecution could
h. forced on Messrs. Burdick and Curtin. The
supreme Court has now unanimously decided that