The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1931-06-02
Justice at Long Last

The supreme court of the United States, after long
deliberation, has decided Minnesotas newspaper gag
law to be unconstitutional. And thereby it strikes a rev
blow for freedom, not only of the press but of the peo-
pie and Of the institutions which were built by our fore
fathers.
In a day as complex as this, the people have little
opportunity to learn for themselves what conditions with
regard to any situation may be. They see a stray bit
of evidence here, an apparent injustice or lnfractlon OF
the accepted codes there, but they find it hard to piece
the whole together. The average citizen may suspect
that things are not what they should be but usually Is
too busy to find out the facts for himself.
1t is true that this nation has occasionally been sub
ject to yellow Journalism. Some newspapers have mis-
taken freedom for license and some have taken delight
in muck -raking for the sake Of stirring the mud. No one
uecries the occasional outcroppingS OF this tendency more
sincerely than the honest journalist, who appreciates that
the fathers of this nation left a great trust in his keep
ing and the keeping of his fellows.
1t is not hard to determine why the principle of free
dom fob the press was incorporated as one OF the fund
amentals of the constitution. The trainers OF that
document knew that a republic such as ours is wholly
dependent upon intelligence and knowledge in the rank
and file. They knew the average citizen would have
little chance of gaining the information necessary to
make Just and fair decisions in public matters if the
press, the logical means of distributing information, were
hampeted or throttled. They knew that newspapers
might often find it necessary to expose the actions OF
public officials in the interest of the public good and
JQey Knew lle leIupldlAOl WllNlA WoA1u SoiAS w ~NA
persons, if vested with sufficient power, to suppress the
instrument by which their malfeasance or misfeasance
was exposed to public view.
The Minnesota case gives apt Illustration OF the entHe
situationl The Saturday Press, on whose behalf the APP
peal wasi taken to the highest court OF the land, charged
in 1927 that the municipal administration of Minneap-
oils was honeycombed with graft and that gannoIng Was
protected in the Mill City.
Immediately a wall of righteous Indignation went up
from the accused officials. They were being woefully
mistreated, they said. They pleaded for protection
against such calumny and the gag law, passed IN 1928
was invoked. The Saturday Press was choked to death
by a law which is now held to be contrary to the con-
stitution. the ruling authority in this country.
What the facts of the case were in 1927 cannot be
said at this distance, but the whole world knows that
Minneapolis has had a house cleaning during the last
two years. Several members of the city council were
sent to prison for accepting brides. The courts said
the Saturday Press was wrong in 1927, but reversed the
verdict in 1880.
A recent grand jury indicted numerous Minneapolis
policemen for allegedly protecting gambling dives and
houses of ill-fame. Only those who refuse to be con-
WINGED, will contend that there was no basis for this
action. Again, if the Saturday Press was wrong in 1927
as the courts said it was, it was right in 1881.
On the whole, Minnesota should profit because the
supreme court did something which its own supreme
court refused to do and which its legislature was too
inept to do.
The record made in this case by the supreme court
of Minnesota, which twice rejected the newspapers ap-
peal, throws a very real shadow upon the honesty OF
that tribunal. To put it BADLY, there is more than a
hint Of political subservience by Minnesotas highest
judicial body. Granting that the federal supreme court
is right. how could a body of honest and capable men,
sitting as a state supreme court, be so wrong? The
answer may be that they were not too honest to heed
the call of entrenched political grafters.
An honest, fearless and unimpeachable judiciary is one
of the prime requisites to freedom in a Democracy such
as ours. When it fails to function the entire warp and
wool of justice becomes rotten. Voters of every state
could do worse, on frequent occasion, than to peer into
the workings of its judicial system. It Is their duty as
freemen under the constitution; the same constitution
which was repeatedly flouted by the courts in the Min
nesota case involving the gag" law.