The Freedom of the Press—Shall It Be Preserved?
By M. C. W.
IT is certainly in danger. Repeated attacks have been made upon this time-honored palladium of our rights. Congressman Fitzgerald, of New York, sought to do this in an amendment, to the post office appropriation bill, December 31, 1914. This was defeated. Then he introduced a bill of the same import, which is still pending. Another congressman, Mr. Gallivan, of Boston, Massachusetts, has introduced a more drastic measure than the Fitzgerald bill. It is as follows: "Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That whenever it shall be established to the satisfaction of the postmaster-general that any person is engaged in the business of publishing any scandalous, scurrilous, indecent, or immoral books, pamphlets, pictures, prints, engravings, lithographs, photographs, or other publications which are, or are represented to be, a reflection on any form of religious worship practiced or held sacred by any citizens of the United States, it is hereby declared that the postmaster-general shall make the necessary rules and regulations to exclude such matter from the mails." The design of the bill is to strike against the aggressive Protestant press. There are many honest, patriotic American citizens who believe that Roman Catholicism is a political menace to free institutions, but who have naught against Roman Catholics as individuals. This is equally true regarding Mormonism. Not a few believe that Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, Buddhism, theosophy, spiritism, Christian Science, are antagonistic to the gospel of Christ; and they say it. Now whether their convictions are true or not, they have the constitutional and indefeasible right to speak them. And the devotees of each of these named isms have the same right. If a religious system cannot stand the fullest, most searching investigation and freest criticism, it deserves to go down. The man who feels he has the truth, can afford to be fair; and he who does not have the truth, or is not disposed to be fair, ought not to be permitted to muzzle others. Then, too, no one man, however high his position, ought to be made a religious censor of the press, or be permitted to decide as to whether any publication is "a reflection on any form of religious worship practiced or held sacred by any citizens of the United States." What then would some of our Catholic papers do which seem to delight to reflect on the mistake (to use the mildest term) of Protestantism? The man who slanders his neighbor is subject to the law, but there is no law to protect a religious ism. Wherever isms or institutions are thus exalted, man is correspondingly degraded. The fullest, freest liberty under present laws, with redress at common courts, is all that the liberty-loving will ask, and all that the intolerant deserve.