Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 October 1909 — HEARING IN LIBEL CASE PROCEEDS [ARTICLE]

HEARING IN LIBEL CASE PROCEEDS

Court Sees Politics Io Trial of Smith and Williams. - ■ FURTHER ARGUMENTS TODAY Judge Anderson Expresses Himself as Being Inclined to Believe the Purchase of the Panama Property Was a Proper Subject For Newspaper Discussion Mentions Fact That Cost Has Exceeded the Estimate Made Originally. Indianapolis, Oct. 12. —That the Panama libel case is “more or less a political matter’’ was the comment of Judge A. B. Anderson, who is presiding over the hearing of Charles R. Williams and Delavan Smith, proprietors of the Indianapolis News, whom the government is seeking to remove to the District of Columbia for trial on the charge of criminal libel. “The whole Panama canal project is a great political project,” said the court, “and there has been much honest expression of opinion as to the advisability of having chosen the Panama route in preference to the Nicaragua route, and, since the cost of building the canal is so much larger than at first estimated, as to whether or not the United States should own any At-lantic-Pacific canal. Press Has Duty to Perform. “The press has a public duty to perform and in political discussions it seems to me that the conception of libel should be greatly different from the conception that should apply to a case of libel on a person’s private character.” Stuart MacNamara, special attorney for the government, maintained that the Indianapolis News, though printed in Indianapolis, was published in Washington as well as in many other jurisdictions; that copies of the paper were sold in public there and that, therefore, the crime charged was committed in Washington as well as elsewhere. Judge Anderson asked McNamara how, in his opinion, It should be decided where such a libel case should be tried. McNamara said that he thought the first court in which an action were brought should have jurisdiction. Arguments Again Today. "Would a conviction in one jurisdiction be a bar to further proceedings In the same matter in a hundred other jurisdictions?” asked the court. McNamara said he was not prepared to answer this question. McNamara said the records at Washington absolutely refuted charges of corruption in the Panama purchase and that the defendants had not considered these records in publishing the charges complained of. The only testimony offered by the government consisted of copies of the issues of the Indianapolis News containing the alleged libelous articles and selections from the report of the senate .committee of 1906 which investigated the Panama canal deal. Arguments will be continued today.