Show AS OTHERS SEE IT the D duty daty aty of newspapers as seen by tha hundred E eyed ahguz every now and ther her it a country newspaper is treated to tile the metropolitan luxury of a libel fruit by sonic some broken down politician clamoring for notoriety the case of stewart vs the T logan ogan JOURNAL was III on demurrer this week in the first district court stewart claims claim to be a democrat and as such has persistently sought office in that party last fall lie he went over to the opposition and became a candidate for legislative honors on a mongrel ticket with a manifesto platform needless to say he was snowed under by a majority of about fifteen hundred during the campaign tim THE JOURNAL called attention to the fact that stewart had bad held office iu in logan city and cache county for a period of twenty years that he had licen been careless and and from his own accounts account and record had failed to account for public funds entrusted to him whet whether her th thi 1 was a insult of negligence or t theft heft tun tim JOURNAL did not say but left for tho this gentleman to explain believing lie the public entitled to an explanation stewart however bad no excuse to offer but ing instead tead has a undertaken to make his books balance by heroic me method and distract attention from fro en his accounts to himself while he poes as the high kicker in a legal comedy the law of libel should be remodeled so that newspapers may mav do their duty to the public without the annoyance of being dragged into court by men who feel damaged aged whenever the r searchlight of investigation is turned upon their public records if a man has held office handled funds and failed to account for any portion of them although frequently requested in private to do so it should be the ri right ht of any taxpayer to publicly d demand el mand an accounting or to expose the real or apparent shortage e in the press j particularly when an official of that description applies to abd tbd public for another office of trust it is the moral duty of a newspaper to warn the taxpayers of the community wherein it is published against fraud and to enlighten them concerning every misappropriation of public moneys it should be the legal privilege of f a newspaper to warn electors against a candidate whose previous experience peri ence in public office would stamp him as an all unfit or man for the place no newspaper should go out of its way way to attack the record of an official but when that record is an all issue made so 0 o by his own act when a knowl knowledge fdge of it t is a a matter of vital importance to 0 o the public it should be exposed ind and the paper which makes the expose should be regarded a as a public aublib benefactor argue |