Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 February 1910 — WEATHER FORECAST. [ARTICLE]

WEATHER FORECAST.

Fair tonight and Friday. Colder tonight. A Statement Regarding Libel Suits. The spectable of one newspaper publisher suing another is very unusual, especially when the plaintiff in the action has shown a strong propensity for newspaper controversy wherein personal terms have been used and where the writer has frequently been abusive and used language calculated to misrepresent and defame the very parties he makes the defendants in his suit for libel. The filing of suits by F. E. Babcock for civil damages against the publishers of the Republican will result within a few days in suits being filed by the Joint publishers of this paper and by one or more private suits of a similar kind. The , necessity for. this action is the cause of it. The publishers of this paper can stand up and give or take as much and as long as any publisher in the business and we early learned in newspaper work that an editor must have a thick skin and not worry about what other papers think of him or say about him, and were it not necessary in retaliation to meet the style of attack instituted by Babcock by ourselves bringing suits, we would look over and pass up many scurrulous things that he has published with thp certain hope of doing us a business and social injury, and some of the things he has said have had unquestioned effect with the public to the detriment of one or both of the active publisbersbf this paper.

A person can not be called an “alleged soiled dove” nor can persons collectively be called a “pack of wolves” without making the person giving vent to such epithets liable under the law both criminally and civil. We shall hope not to annoy our pattrons with our differences, and we merely offer in explanation that the means we pursue are entirely defensive and justified by the style of attack chosen by Babcock.