Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 April 1910 — Babcock Takes Change of Venue In State Case Against Him. [ARTICLE]

Babcock Takes Change of Venue In State Case Against Him.

The case of the State against Frank E. Babcock, in which Leslie Clark is the prosecuting witness, has been sent to Newton county for trial on Babcock’s motion. In the issue of the Democrat of April 16th, under the heading' “A Little Explanation,” Babcock undertook, to try this case, and recited an incident which he alleges to have been informed occurred at Cedar Lake, in which a certain republican editor was seen in a beer stall with a woman. The article stated that the editor was seen coming out of the beer stall with empty beer bottles, went with them to the bar, got more beer and returned to the stall. Babcock stated in that issue that he did' not say that it was “Clarkie” and that he don’t say so now; that there are a lot of otheir republican editors in the country and that it is up to the two men who saw the' occurrence to say what editor it was. He closes his article by saying: “We don’t believe they will flinch when the time comes for them to tell this under oath, and the case will be tried in this county, too.” And this is the case that Babcock now has asked and been granted a change of venue on. Evidently he has changed his mind since his article of April 16th or else the “gentlemen” who he had relied upon to swear whom the editor was have “flinched.” Leslie Clark is absolutely innocent of this libel. His citizenship and his family demand that he prosecute the man guilty of so gross an insult, and Babcock will learn gradually that he can not fling such contemptible and wholly false charges at any citizen without having to stand before the court and face his false statements. The fact, that this case was to be tried in Jasper county caused the Republican not to discuss it, but now that Babcock has backed up on his boast that it would be “tided in this county, too,” we believe the people have a right to know that the inuendo that it was hoped would do someone an injury, was In fact a lie against a man who is in every way the superior of the man who would publish and perpetrate such a story. This is the story that lished a year ago, having equal Inference to Leslie Clark and George H. Healey. The latter forced Babcock to sign a statement that he was not meant. Mr Clark has pursued a less impetuous but more proper course in having brought action for criminal libel against the man who would thus mar his standing In a community. The story was intolerable, unbearable, a lie and a libel, and Babcock should get justice wherever be Is tried.