Show COMMENT the course of the first district court in heaping up for libel against editor hemenway and ignoring others quite as guilty as at least is arousing general public condemnation and the editor has almost the universal sympathy of the public the salt lake herald says whatever editor offense may be the alio read the vile assault on him quoted in a preceding article in saturdays tribune will go out howarda him and he will bo regarded aa a belter man than ever his friends have him credit for in thia connection it maybe suggested eliat the district attorney should bo able to find in the tribunes article substantial ground upon which to plant a prosecution fur criminal libel commenting further upon the sub eject of libels the same journal says editor of the has been indicted tried and declared guilty of criminal libel the offensive matter being contained in an editorial article which appeared in his paper some months ago certain federal officials being alio objects of his strictures it is understood that there are other indictments for alleged libel against the gentleman which aro to be tried later on air been a thorn in the side of the radical faction of alic community ever since lie has had control of tho editorial col dumns of our ogden namesake and has been and outspoken in liis denunciations of tho course pursued hy alic federal officials haying a facile an and n keen perception of the of words ho lias not hesitated to make it understood eliat he had no adye for the men who were this cruel warfare against his people and patrons he has fully realized the risks that he was running and must have understood that with the courts from the judges on the bench to the officers who select the jurors and the men who sweep out the courtrooms court rooms arrayed against the cause which he championed it was was an unequal contest into which he threw himself therefore the greater degree of credit is due him for the courage of standing hy his condic lions and bravely fighting himself into jail the editor may have been mistaken in judgment but no one will accuse him of faltering or failing in what he conceived lo 10 be a duly to himself and those in whose behalf he believed he was laboring for the past fifteen years there has been a good deal of talk in utah about libels in newspapers and many have been the threats of indictment and punishment against offending editors edi tora on several occasions efforts have been made to punish newspaper writers whose criticisms and assertions were too caustic to suit the tastes of court officials the efforts however have failed in most instances grand juries as a rule being logli to interfere the freedom of the press in some cases editors have been annoyed and put to some trouble and expense and a few indictments for libel have been found but we believe there has been no conviction before the one noted above the sentiment of the community is decidedly opposed to restricting the liberty of the press and is as strongly in favor of extending wide latitude to newspapers in the discussion of men measures and official doings alie people look upon ther press as their champion and alie guardian of their rights and trust to it to protect them from official oppression and wrong doing so jealous are they of the rights of the press that in the past when jurors grand and petit were drawn regularly from the lists made up by the district court clerks and the probate judges no editor could have been convicted or even indicted for anything he might have said that was within the bounds of truth of probability pro bablity or of decency it is to the people that the newspaper fraternity must return thanks for the immunity that has been extended them for if some of the courts and officials who have held power here could have had their way the jails would have been full of editors or the utah press been reduced to the condition of base servi ency instead of being as it is today able fearless and influential knowing its rights and possessing the courage to maintain them commenting upon the case of editor hemenway and the libel upon him in saturdays issue of the salt lake tribune the deveret heus says the conviction of mr hemenway editor of the OGDEN libel draws from the organ of the male prostitutes a stream of filth and vituperation pe ration that we think must disgust even tho bitterest enemies of tho editor who has talked to suit a certain class the gent lemans ef fence in the case which has gone against him was merely the publics belief that is that certain federal officials to aae a vulgar raae had pooled theis issues whether this was true or not it was common talk but the editor openly made the charge and it appears has not been able to substantiate it in another article lie used the term crooked in regard to a decision of judge zanes supposing the expressions of the ogden editor to be really libelous there is no justification for the abuse which is injected at liim from the tribune squirt this morning in describing his own ancestry for eighteen hundred years tracing it back to Ananias and tho author of need not think to make the public consider his billingsgate justifiable because of his descent and when we take into account the daily libels which have appeared for years in that adwate of prostitution we are led to marvel at its gall while accustomed to its common mendacity if the tribune scribes were punished for all published in its disgraceful columns ali is life would be too short for their imprisonment their penalties would have to stretch a lone way into eternity there must be considerable good in sir hemenway even if he has made some errors or the venom of the foulest on earth would not be spurted BO violently against him |