People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1894 — JAILED FOR CONTEMPT. [ARTICLE]

JAILED FOR CONTEMPT.

An Om*h* Editor Get* Into Trouble for Critieiainc * Judge. Omaha, Neb., April 26. —Edward Rosewater, editor of the Bee, was sentenced to imprisonment for thirty days and to pay a fine of SSOO for contempt of court. Without being given an opportunity to appeal Mr. Rosewater was ordered taken to jail at once, and for six hours he was behind the bars of the Douglas county jaiL At 6 o’clock the state supreme court granted a supersedeas and Mr. Rosewater was released until the case can be reviewed by the higher court The alleged offense committed by Mr. Rosewater was in allowing to be printed in the Bee a local article in which it was announced that there was evidently some partiality shown to certain criminals in the district court, as of two men caught robbing a railroad depot the poor man was sentenced to prison and the son of wealthy parents was given his liberty without the case coming to trial. The facts in the ease were not denied, but Judge C. R. Scott, who had dismissed the case in question, felt aggrieved at the word “pull” used in the article and had the reporter who wrote the matter brought before him for contempt After a disgraceful scene in court the reporter was sent to jail for thirty days and then Judge Scott concluded to arraign the editor of the paper on the same charge. The case was called forbearing Tuesday, and nearly the whole bar of Douglas county and hundreds of citizens were present in court to listen to the pleas. Evidence was introduced to show that Mr. Rosewater knew nothing of the article complained of, that he was not in the office on the date of its publication, that he had not directed the preparation of the matter and, in fact, was entirely ignorant that an article of any such nature was about to appear. In spite of the evidence Judge Scott declared the defendant guilty, after giving him a severe lecture that provoked some demonstration from the audience. The judge then started to impose sentence without giving Mr. Rosewater an opportunity to be heard. Mr. Rosewater interrupted the court to say that he would- rather rot in forty jails and prisons than to surrender the liberty of the press to criticise public servants. “If there is anything that I am guilty of,” he declared, “if I have been guilty of any contempt at all, it was the contempt of my fellow citizens for helping this late Col. Scott to become judge of this court”