XXXVII
Later Libel Suit Observations
During the many years that I passed in active newspaper work after that time, observation and experience taught me much, with regard to newspaper libel suits, which is not generally known. It may be of interest to suggest some things on the subject here.
I have never known anybody to get rich by suing newspapers for libel. The nearest approach to that result that has come within my knowledge was when Kenward Philp got a verdict for five thousand dollars damages against a newspaper that had accused him of complicity in the forging of the celebrated Morey letter which was used to General Garfield's hurt in his campaign for the Presidency. There have been larger verdicts secured in a few other cases, but I suspect that none of them seemed so much like enrichment to those who secured them, as that one did to Philp. It was not Mr. Philp's habit to have a considerable sum of money in possession at any time. His temperament strongly militated against that, and I think all men who knew him well will agree with me in doubting that he ever had one-half or one-fourth the sum this verdict brought him, in his possession at any one time in his life, except upon that occasion.
In suing newspapers for libel it is the custom of suitors to name large sums as the measure of the damages claimed, but this is a thing inspired mainly by vanity and a spirit of ostentation. It emphasizes the value of the reputation alleged to have been damaged; it is in itself a boastful threat of the punishment the suitor means to inflict, and is akin to the vaporings with which men of rougher ways talk of the fights they contemplate. It is an assurance to the friends of the suitor of his determined purpose to secure adequate redress and of his confidence in his ability to do so. Finally, it is a "don't-tread-on-me" warning to everybody concerned.
Inspired by such motives men often sue for fifty thousand dollars for damages done to a fifty-cent reputation. It costs no more to institute a suit for fifty thousand dollars than to bring one for one or two thousand.
In many cases libel suits are instituted without the smallest intention of bringing them to trial. They are "bluffs," pure and simple. They are meant to intimidate, and sometimes they accomplish that purpose, but not often.
I remember one case with which I had personally to deal. I was in charge of the editorial page of the New York World at the time, and with a secure body of facts behind me I wrote a severe editorial concerning the malefactions of one John Y. McKane, a Coney Island political boss. I specifically charged him with the crimes he had committed, cataloguing them and calling each of them by its right name.
The man promptly served papers in a libel suit against the newspaper. A timid business manager hurriedly came to me with the news, asking if I couldn't write another article "softening" the severity of the former utterance. I showed him the folly of any such attempt in a case where the libel, if there was any libel, had already been published.
"But even if the case were otherwise," I added, "the World will do nothing of that cowardly kind. The man has committed the crimes we have charged. Otherwise we should not have made the charges. I shall indite and publish another article specifically reiterating our accusations, as our reply to his attempt at intimidation."
I did so at once. I repeated each charge made and emphasized it. I ended the article by saying that the man had impudently sued the paper for libel in publishing these truths concerning him, and adding that "it is not as plaintiff in a libel suit that he will have to meet these accusations, but as defendant in a criminal prosecution, and long before his suit for libel can be brought to trial, he will be doing time in prison stripes with no reputation left for anybody to injure."
The prediction was fulfilled. The man was prosecuted and sentenced to a long term in state's prison. So ended that libel suit.
The Queerest of Libel Suits
The queerest libel proceeding of which I ever had personal knowledge, was that of Judge Henry Hilton against certain members of the staff of the New York World. It was unusual in its inception, in its character, and in its outcome.
The World published a series of articles with regard to Judge Hilton's relations with the late A. T. Stewart, and with the fortune left by Mr. Stewart at his death. I remember nothing of the merits of the matter, and they need not concern us here. The World wanted Judge Hilton to bring a libel suit against it, in the hope that at the trial he might take the witness-stand and submit himself to cross-examination. To that end the paper published many things which were clearly libelous if they were not true.
But Judge Hilton was not to be drawn into the snare. He instituted no libel suit in his own behalf; he asked no redress for statements made about himself, but he made complaint to the District Attorney, Colonel John R. Fellows, that the World had criminally libeled the memory of A. T. Stewart, and for that offense Col. Fellows instituted criminal proceedings against John A. Cockerill and several other members of the World's staff, who thus learned for the first time that under New York's queer libel law it is a crime to say defamatory things of Benedict Arnold, Guy Fawkes, or the late Judas Iscariot himself unless you can prove the truth of your charges.
The editors involved in this case were held in bail, but as no effort of their attorneys to secure their trial could accomplish that purpose, it seems fair to suppose that the proceedings against them were never intended to be seriously pressed.
Finally, when the official term of Colonel Fellows drew near its end, Mr. De Lancy Nicoll was elected to be his successor as District Attorney. As Mr. Nicoll had been the attorney of the World and of its accused editors, the presence of these long dormant cases in the District Attorney's office threatened him with a peculiarly sore embarrassment. Should he find them on his calendar upon taking office, he must either become the prosecutor in cases in which he had been defendants' counsel, or he must dismiss them at risk of seeming to use his official authority to shield his own former clients from due responsibility under the criminal law.
It was not until the very day before Mr. Nicoll took office that the embarrassing situation was relieved by Colonel Fellows, who at the end of his term went into court and asked for the dismissal of the cases.
One other thing should be said on this subject. There are cases, of course, in which newspapers of the baser sort do wantonly assail reputation and should be made to smart for the wrong done. But these cases are rare. The first and most earnest concern of every reputable newspaper is to secure truth and accuracy in its news reports, and every newspaper writer knows that there is no surer way of losing his employment and with it his chance of securing another than by falsifying in his reports. The conditions in which newspapers are made render mistakes and misapprehensions sometimes unavoidable; but every reputable newspaper holds itself ready to correct and repair such mistakes when they injure or annoy innocent persons. Usually a printed retraction with apology in fact repairs the injury. But I have known cases in which vindictiveness, or the hope of money gain, has prompted the aggrieved person to persist in suing for damages and rejecting the offer of other reparation. In such cases the suitors usually secure a verdict carrying six cents damages. In one case that I remember the jury estimated the damages at one cent—leaving the plaintiff to pay the costs of the proceeding.