The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-03-26
CURRENT COMMENT.


of school, He has no libel suit on in
the District Court of Shawnee county.
To be sure, there is one set for trial
tomorrow and a long drawn out trial
just ended last Friday. But why Dor
row trouble? Let US look. with salts
faction upon the past, be content with
the present and look forward with
hope to the future.
Today this column is entitled Cur
rent Comment" For two wees dur
ing the Crawford trial and. tribulation
the heading-was Current History"
Tomorrow when trial begins anew, the
caption will be restored.
BY the way this PIPER seems to be
taking up a lot of time of Judge Car
ver's court. but we are always tn de-
PENDANT. 1t is not our fault that I'M
fortunate attorneys lead misguided
clients into the courts. In thirty-three
years the ,ditor of this paper can re-
call no instance in which he instituted
suit. Suits are expensive to liti-
gents, generally to our plaintiffs and
always to the county. The expense of
a jury is $50 per day to say nothing of
the overhead expenses like the salary
of the judge, of the district clerk, of
the bailiff and of the hundred and one
different items of expense which
Shawnee county must incur when fool
I ish lawyers give their clients ill-ad-
vised advice. for which they duly
charge the fees therein provided by
them.
To be sure, there have been many
suits brought against the editor and
proprietor of the State journal during
the past thirty-odd busy years; but
bear in mind. mister taxpayer. this
paper did not institute any one of
the score of libel suits that have been
brought again this one paper.
There must be some way to avoid
libel suits for there are papers which
do not seem to have them. A newspa-
per, however, which would exercise
the courage of it's convictions and try
to speak the truth, let the chips fall
where they may when the public well
fare is at stake, must take the
chances. It is one of the possible ex-
penses of conducting a live newspaper
! in a live town.
We hear a great deal about good
business concerns and corporations
having a budget, and keeping within
that budget in expenditures. How can
an enterprising and entertaining news
| paper, which pretends to give the
reader the news and tries to watch out
for the best interests of the public,
have a budget to cover libel suits?
The State Journal had no budget of
| $4,000 to cover these two cases. one
Following on the heels of the other:
one for 5000 and one for $4,000.
! BY the way. this $4,000 case seems
to the defendant to contain within it
some wild figures.
Suppose the barber wins it. He may
then move to Easy Street Think
what that $4,000 means to him. dis
missing for the moment what it means
to the defendant. To earn O,OO0. at
| Is cents g shave, assuming the barber
would shave twenty men in eight
| hours, not counting the hair cuts, the
shampoos, tonics and facial messages,
| it would require 133,333 shaves and,
at 90 shaves day. that would take
1855 days or something more than 20
years. Do you wonder that the bar
Der at Hypes' Antiseptic barber shop
scents easy money in the dollars in
his lawyers vision?
Here is this head barber named
Decker, Double-Deckar as it were in
the Antiseptic barber shop at Seventh
and Kansas avenue, who declares that
he has suffered $4,000 damages on
account of a little 2OO-word article
printed on the inside of this paper
last October. That's 800 a word
entirely too much money: hut the bar
Der declares that the article is worth
that much, to him. and he proposes
to collect it from this defendant. de-
tying the adage about blood out of
tuInips.
1t seemed a fairly reinunerative
price when Roosevelt received 81 a
word for his descriptive article of his
African trip in Scribner's Magaz1 e
but this high priced barber values one
OF our little articles at 500 per word.
My. how we do wish we could get
about so a word for books we are
writins-one-tenth of the Decker es-
innate.
Here is this article you are now
reading, written this afternoon 1t
contains, say 5000 words. Even so
cents a word would be $500. which
is. come to think of it. quite enough,
quite. Ten cents a word, William AL
len Whites early days compensation
from
would. indeed. be sufficient. Where
could one earn $500 easier? Where ?
Oh. yes Barber Decker wants $500 a
word Too Tnucht Will he get it?
He's after it hot and he asks the just
and patient jury, today in the>-bornin'
to appraise the article at the price
named. not by an experienced pub
i. Usher or author. hut by a high priced