Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1915-03-23
Publicity Guarantees Good Faith

NOR sprightly contemporary, the Evening
~ Journal is entertaining alwnys--cntcr-
tanning when ii permits 4 considerable
humorous talent TO frolic and gamhol in true
accord with function. and still more enter
tanning when !; tries or pretends 20 be Seri-
Gus. Whether the Evening Journals latest
cffusion on the proposed police Investigation
represents an actual attempt to treat mat
ter OF public Importance with the gravity il
deserves. or conccalS sarcasm more than
customarily elaborate is difficult to deter
mine, but in either view the usual entertain
ment Is supplied
The Evening Journal. we are informed,
favors police Investigation behind closed
doors, its thought being that were the invcs-
tgation public newspapers would be COM
PEELED, against their will to publish testimony
that ought not to he published. So far ms
The Times Dispatch is concerned. it antici-
pates no difficulty in keeping its columns free
of filth. 1t has maintained that freedom In
me past, amidst the constant opportunities
every newspaper has to depart from the rule
and il has the same confidence as to its course
in the future. That the Evening Journal
finds like repression difficult is no reason
why those safeguards against the abuse of
power that the experience of free peoples
has established should be thrown aside
What the Evening Journal says against
publicity in the police Investigation applies
with exactly equal force against public
criminal trluiS. where the evidence is
salacious otherwise offensive Vet the
right to "a speedy and public trial is con
ferred by the Constitution itself on every
person accused al crime and that right al
lects the community. and is valuable 10 the
community no less than it affects and is val
liable TO the individual
Newspaper reporters are admitted with the
public 30 every criminal trial held in this
city. They have nnumerablc opportunities
/ .I,,l ,l,4
employ them would permit. to publish testi-
mony offensive to good taste. There is hard
~ a session of police court where such evil
denco is no; presented. Whatever is done
elsewhere. in Richmond. at any rate news
paper violations of decency are exceedingly
inirequent. and when they occur are univer-
sally and properly condemned.
AS have said before attempts at
secrecy in matters OF this kind are not sue
cessful in keeping newspaper columns clean
They have, indeed the exactly opposite cf-
feet for newspapers are human institutions,
after all. and behave themselves best when
they feel they are being trusted 1t is not
much OF feat for any good reporter to pene-
irate secret shared by score or more per
sons as witness the full accounts OF every
supposed executive session OF the United
States Senate.
What the newspapers will publish has. in
fact. absolutely nothing TO do with this dis
cussion AS 10 that. they will be guided by
their own sense OF propriety and by no other
considerations whatever
The requirement OF publicity has an en-
tirely different basis. It is no prurient curl
osiiy which makes Richmond nsistcnt that
it shall know how It's Police Department has
been conducted, but q just sense oil It's own
dignity and just apprehension of its own
safety. To this end il is important that the
Investigation shall lack no approved guaran-
tee OF freedom from either revenge or laxty.
Absolute openness is the best guarantee OF
this sort that experience supplies. 1t is, in
deed, the one guarantee that any American
community can be induced unreservcdly to
accept.
Deep in its own heart the Evening Journal
understands Ihis-and understands it quite
as we'll as any one else. But Of course, the
Evening Journal must have its little Joke.