Accordingly, I sought redress in the first instance from the "International Journal of Ethics." On January 21, I mailed to Mr. S. Burns Weston, the office editor, an article in reply to Dr. Royce's ostensible review, together with a letter in which I wrote: "I do not at all complain of your publishing Dr. Royce's original article, although it was a most malicious and slanderous one, and undertook (not to put too fine a point upon it) to post me publicly as a quack. If you do not deny my indefeasible right to be heard in self-defence in the same columns, I shall feel that I have no cause whatever to regard you or your committee as a party to the outrage, and shall entertain no feelings towards you or towards them other than such as are perfectly friendly. Let even slander and malice be heard, if truth shall be as free to reply." Pressing engagements had prevented me from writing the article in season for the January number of the "Journal of Ethics," but it was in ample season for the April number.
I sent it at last because I had full confidence in the soundness of what Thomas Jefferson said so well: "Truth and reason can maintain themselves without the aid of coercion, if left free to defend themselves. But then they must defend themselves. Eternal lies and sophisms on one side, and silence on the other, are too unequal."
The "International Journal of Ethics" is under the control of an "editorial committee" of eight, Dr. Felix Adler at the head and Dr. Royce at the end; the other six members live in Europe and have no share in the home management. Mr. Weston is not a member of the committee, has little editorial authority, and, in case of disagreement between the two American members, would, as he himself expressly and frankly informed me in answer to a direct question, obey implicitly the directions of Dr. Adler. To Dr. Adler, therefore, belongs the general and ultimate editorial responsibility, whether legal or moral, since, according to Mr. Western's just quoted declaration, Dr. Adler alone has actual power either to procure or to prevent publication; while to Dr. Royce is assigned merely the special department of "theoretical ethics." Hence Dr. Adler and Dr. Royce were jointly responsible for the original libel, the latter for writing it, the former for publishing it; but Dr. Adler alone was editorially responsible for publishing or refusing to publish my reply to it. It was to Dr. Adler alone, as responsible editor-in-chief of the "Journal of Ethics," that I looked for publication of my defence, as the best possible reparation for the wrong done in publishing the libellous attack; and I looked to him with confidence for this partial and inadequate reparation, believing that, as head of the "ethical culture movement," he would be anxious to conduct the "Journal of Ethics" in accordance with the highest principles of justice, honor, and fair play.
To my astonishment and indignation, however, my manuscript, instead of being considered and finally passed upon by Dr. Adler, was forwarded by him or by his direction to Dr. Royce! The latter, getting wind of it, had "insisted" that it belonged to his department of "theoretical ethics," and "claimed the right" to edit it with a rejoinder in the same issue. Nothing could be conceived more unfair or more absurd. A libel had been published by Dr. Adler, and Dr. Adler sent the defence against this libel to be edited by the libeller himself! Protest was in vain. Dr Adler denied his own moral responsibility, washed his hands of the whole affair, and even refused to enlighten himself as to his own duty (notwithstanding my urgent request that he should do so) by taking counsel of some wise and able lawyer of his own acquaintance. Instead of doing this, he affected to consider my self-defence against a libel as merely a reply to an ordinary "book-criticism," made a few inquiries as to the "usual practice of journals" with reference to book-criticisms alone, turned my article over to Dr. Royce as one on "theoretical ethics," and permitted him to attach to it a rejoinder which reiterated the original libel with additions and improvements, but in which he took pains to say of my reply: "I may add that even now it does not occur to me to feel personally wounded, nor yet uneasy at Dr. Abbot's present warmth." These words have a peculiar interest with reference to his later legal notice against all publication or circulation of this very reply: his assumed or genuine pachydermatousness soon gave way to fearful apprehension of its effect upon the public mind.
In no sense whatever was my reply an article on "theoretical ethics." To what part of the "theory of ethics" belongs Dr. Royce's false personal accusation of "extravagant pretensions"? To what part of the "theory of ethics" belongs Dr. Royce's false personal accusation of "sinning against the most obvious demands of literary property-rights"? To what part of the "theory of ethics" belongs Dr. Royce's "professional warning" against pretensions which were never made? His false accusations and their false grounds were the main theme of my article, and they had nothing to do with "theoretical ethics," Dr Adler and Dr. Royce to the contrary notwithstanding. Dr. Royce had no shadow of right to set up so preposterous a claim, and Dr. Adler had no shadow of right to yield to it, as he weakly did, thereby violating his own undeniable obligation, as editor-in-chief, to do his utmost to repair the wrong which he himself had done in publishing a libel. My article was avowedly nothing but a defence against this libel, and, as such, was necessarily addressed to the responsible editor of the "Journal of Ethics," not to the sub-editor of one of its special departments—most assuredly not to the libeller himself. The only fair and just course was to publish this defence alone by itself, precisely as the libel had been published alone by itself, and afterwards to allow Dr. Royce to follow it, if he pleased, with a rejoinder in the succeeding number. I made not the slightest objection to one rejoinder or a dozen rejoinders from him, provided the responsible editor held the balance true, accorded as fair a hearing to the accused as he had accorded to the accuser, and granted to each in turn an opportunity to plead his cause without interruption by the other. I asked no more than what Dr. Royce had already received—an opportunity to enjoy the undivided and undistracted attention of the audience for a limited time. He had had the ear of the public for six months. Could I not have it for three?
But I regret to say that considerations of equal justice seemed to have no weight whatever with Dr. Adler. Dr. Royce, despite his public pledge, was "asking for mercy," after all, and got from Dr. Adler all he asked for; I asked Dr. Adler for equity alone, and could not get even that. The sole concession made was that I might follow Dr. Royce's rejoinder with a second reply in the same number, thus closing the case with a last word for the defence.
To this last proposal, in order not to refuse a meagre measure of justice, I consented under protest. But the proof-sheets of Dr. Royce's rejoinder, to which I was to reply, did not reach me till March 18, and were accompanied with a notice from the "Journal of Ethics" that my reply must be mailed "within ten hours after receiving Royce's proof." This notice I answered as follows:—
"The proof of Royce's rejoinder, with your notes of the 16th and 17th, arrived this morning at 9 a.m. As I have had to be at my teaching till 3 p.m., it was obviously impossible to mail a reply by 7 p.m. Hence I telegraphed to you at once: 'I protest against the gross injustice of postponing my article, or of publishing this new attack without the last word you promised me. It is impossible to write this now [i. e., within the ten hours stipulated]. If you have any love of justice, publish my article now, and postpone the rejoinders to next issue.' Nothing stands in the way of this, the only fair course, except Royce's insistence on his right to deprive me of the equality of treatment which I supposed he himself guaranteed in his—'as we ask none.' To hold back my reply to his libel for three months longer, merely because he is afraid to let it go forth without an attempt to break its force in the same number, would be disgracefully unjust in him and in the 'Journal.' His rejoinder is simply a fresh libel; there is nothing in it to which I cannot easily and effectually reply. But what right is there in refusing to me the opportunity of answering one libel at a time? Or in compelling me to be silent nine months [from October to July], in order to save him from being silent three months [from April to July]? It will be a bitter comment on the sincerity of the 'ethical culture movement' to make so unethical a judgment in so grave a case as this."
But the April number of the "Journal of Ethics," nevertheless, was published without my article. The latter was all in type, and the proof-sheets had been corrected; nothing prevented its publication in April except (1) Dr. Royce's insistence that my reply to his first libel should not be published at all without his second libel, and (2) Dr. Adler's weak submission to this unjust and pusillanimous demand of his associate.
The whole matter was thus most inequitably postponed to the July number, primarily at Dr. Royce's instigation. But I now found that I was to be refused the freedom necessary to self-defence against the second libel—the same freedom already yielded in replying to the first. Now to answer a libel effectively requires the freedom, not of the parliament, but of the courts. A mere literary discussion admits of parliamentary freedom alone, and properly excludes all reflections upon personal character. But Dr. Royce had most unparliamentarily turned his ostensible review into a libel, and, contrary to all canons of literary discussion, had indulged himself in reflections upon my personal character as malicious as they were false. Now the only possible disproof of a libel is the proof that it is a libel,—that it is either untruthful, or malicious, or both; and, since a libel is both a civil injury and a criminal offence, the proof of its libellous character cannot be established without reflecting upon the personal character of the libeller. Hence Dr. Royce himself, by writing a libel, had self-evidently raised the question of his own personal character, and bound himself beforehand, by his own act, to submit with what grace he could to the necessary consequences of that act; and to seek to shield himself from these consequences, which he should have foreseen clearly and nerved himself to bear bravely, was only to incur the ridicule invited by a timorous man who first strikes another and then runs away. Dr. Adler, moreover, as the responsible editor of the "Journal of Ethics," had laid himself, by publishing Dr. Royce's libel, under the clear moral obligation of according to the accused the same freedom of the courts which he had already accorded to the accuser; and to seek to escape this moral obligation was to incur the censure invited by any one who assumes the editorial function without properly informing himself of the duties which it imposes with reference to third parties. Both the one and the other had estopped themselves from denying to the accused in self-defence the same freedom of the courts which they had granted to themselves as accusers in attack.