The Punta Gorda herald. [volume] (Punta Gorda, Fla.) 1893-1958, 1915-03-11

~ nave Deen known outside OF tne
boundaries of Duval County.
It is true that not all newspa-
pers are good as well as that all
federal senators are not strictly
upright. There are some "black
sheep" in every calling, even
amongst the preachers of the Cos
pei; but, to denounce a whole pro-
fession because very few men,
bers of it may be vicious, is not
only unreasonable, but foolish.
Senator Fletcher profession is
that of a lawyer. Lawyers are
supposed to stand for law and
order, for right and justice, but
do they? Are they not more
than all others responsible for
the countless miscarriages of
justice which, for many years
past, have been scandalizing the
country and bringing the law and
| the courts into contempt? And
what have the newspapers been
doing while this crying shame and
scandal has been going on? They
have continually lifted up their
voices and used their best influ-
ence in behalf of law and justice,
demanding for the people that
protection for life and property
which the laws pretend to guaran-
tee and denuncing the many meth
DDS by which criminals escape the
just consequences of their mis-
deeds and are encouraged to con-
tinue in their careers of outrage
against the rights of men.
The lawyers are the ones who aid
the criminals in escaping punish
ment-indeed they frame the laws
apparently with this end in view,
while the newspapers, day in and
day out, persistently clamor for
the punishment of law breakers,
be they "blind tigers" or assas-
sins, hog thieves or bank default
ers, ballot-box suffers or senatori-
al bribe-givers.
We submit that, if there is any
profession which should be legis-
lated against, it is that of
the lawyers. They should be
prohibited from making dilatary
motions in court, from causing
the pOstponement of cases until
the material witnesses have died
or disappeared, from taking adj
vantage of all sorts of TECHNICAL
ties for extricating scOundrels
from the meshes of the law, from
holding and using money collect
ed for their clients, from charging
their clients the outrageous fees
that many of them do charge,
from failing to pay their bills for
groceries and other things, as well
as from many other tricks and
deviltries known only to lawyers.
There are indeed many good
lawyers, good in all senses of the
word, and we believe that Senator
Fletcher is one of them, but he
should first extract the mountain
from the eyes of his own profess
sion before trying to remove the
speck of gold dust from the oph-
thalmic organs of journalism.
In the past few years, enough of
blamed-fool laws against the
have been enacted in
Tallahassee and Washington; and,
If we have any more of them, this
Herald is going to give utterance
to some revolutionary views. This
seems to be the age of blame-fool
laws. Now we have one recently
enacted in Washington and for
which Senator Fletcher doubtless
law against paregoric
Did you ever? If a Punta Cor
ola mother, or a mother anywhere
else in the United has baby with
the stomach-ache, she will have a
devil of time of it getting any
paregoric for it. For this, she
should blame Senator Fletcher
and maybe that is why he wants
the press muzzled, to keep the
newspapers from telling of the
jackass things done in Washing
ton and at Tallahassee.
We are surprised at Senator
Fletcher and we believe that he
is surprised at himself. We
commend him to that beautiful
hymn, "Take it to the Lord in
Prayer" and if he will do so, we
know that he will repent.
We also wish to say that those
two or three Florida newspapers
which have shown the servility of
commencing Senator Fletcher's
denumciation of their own profess
sion, that we greatly admire the
dog, mans most loyal friend, but
we haven't the noble Christian
spirit of that animal which
prompts him to lick the hand that
smites him and fawn at the feet
of his master.