New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1917-09-26

sofa to cause the arrest Of Senator La
Toilette, for the purpose Of making q
grand-stand play. And that is just
what it would mean.
Soapbor Orators
Judge Mcintyre of the New York
court Of general sessions few days ago
told the grand jury, in session in that
city, that he had heard speakers adj
dressing the street crowds, refer con-
temptuously to the President Of the
United States -and congress, abuse
successful business men, and character
ize corporations carrying ona legitimate
business, as Indicators. He urged the
Indictment of some Of these orators.
Such utterances, according to Judge
Mcintyre, make the speakers liable to
Indictment and punishment by imprison-
ment. The statement by the judge calls
forth the following editorial in the New
OK American:
Nov, we hold no brief for street
orators. They are usually men with
one-track minds, and apt to be in
temperate in speech and not very con-
vicning in argument. Many times their
utterances are rank nonsense and Of
fensive to patriotism.
But we affirm that all the unpatriotic
and nonsensical utterances of the soap
box orators who ever spoke in New
York streets would not be one-tenth
so mischievous as the adoption by
American courts of justice of this UNI
democratic and unconstitutional doctrine
expounded to a grand Jury by Judge
Mcintyre.
Zone may dispute the propriety of
speaking contempt uously of the President
and Of Congress, but whenever the
RIGHT Of any American to speak as he
pleases about the President or the Con-
gress or any public servant is denied,
or made punishable offense, that
moment the Constitution becomes a
scrap of paper, the nation ceases to be a
democracy and no mans liberties are
safe.
eve are amazed to hear the language
Of some of the Judges today. In better
and manlier days of the Republic
they would have been promptly removed
from the bench for daring to proclaim
in American ears the abominable doctrine
of LESE MAJESTE, the still more
abominable doctrine that free speech is a
crime when the speakers utterances do
not. please public officials. We call
Judge McIntyre's attention to the
undeniable fact that only a few short
months ago the President and the
Congress were being daily denounced,
ridiculed and reviled, not by street
speakers, but by editors of powerful
newspapers, ex-Presidents of the United
States, rich bankers, Senators and
Representatives in Congress and mem
bers of the judiciary.
s'There never was more bitter and
scurrilous abuse heaped upon any heads
than that which the war promoters
heaped upon President Wilson as long
as he kept the nation out of the war in
Europe; and never was the majority in
Congress more foully abused than by
these very men who now clamor for the
Imprisonment of anybody who dares to
| criticise the policies of the Government,
or to have an opinion at variance with
official opinion.
Eve have indeed fallen upon evil
times if American judges are to uphold
the servile doctrine of Lese Majestic,
the abominable doctrine that the ex-
preston of opinion can be crime, the
despotic doctrine that private opinion
must keep silence in the presence OF
official opinion.
"a Judge who deliberately holds that
citizen has committed crime if he has
spoken contemptuously Of the President
or the Congress or has condemned the
conduct Of rich men, or has stigmatized
corporations as malefactors such judge
neither knows the law nor administers
the law properly, and he is besides,
UNTRUE to his oath to maintain the
Constitution and his solemn obligation
to uphold and defend the liberties Of the
land. 0
1--WE have become Disguised with the
frequency with which we read Of men
being committed to jail on the charge
that they have spoken disrespectfully'
of the President OF the Government.
..There is no such oferse known to
laws. There can be no such offense