Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 February 1875 — Time a Blow Should be Struck. [ARTICLE]

Time a Blow Should be Struck.

To use the language of the Logansport Journal, if the Union’s, charge that Gen. Packard’s vote for the Pacific Mail subsidy was purchased, is false, [and we cannot but believe it is false,] Gen. Packard will do journalism a service by making the proprietors of that journal smart severely for originating and publishing such a falsehood. The recklessness of a certain class of newspapers needs a check, as they are bringing reproach u'pon a noble profession ; and the man who has the courage to prove that the law. and a justly aroused public sentiment, will not give impunity to newspaper slanderers, will deserve the thanks of all'dovers of decency and good morals. It is time that a blow should be struck somewhere that will entirely annihilate this contemptible tendency of a certain class of papers to misrepresent and traduce well-meaning and honest public servants. Granted that Gen. Packard may have erred in voting and taking what is called the “salary grab,” it is no reason why the Union' or ether papers should call him a “fool,” a “thief,” “bribetaker,” “knave,” &e. Everyone who is intimately acquainted with Mr. Packard believes him to be a pure and conscientious man ; it is even admitted by his political enemies that he is an honest man, and that his action in the increased salary matter was dictated by pure and unselfish motives. If a public man innocently errs in one particular, it does not give a roving license to newspaper publishers to vilify and traduce him, throwing at hk» devoted head every mean and contemptible epithet to be found in the rogue’s calendar. It is time that this wholesale abuse of good public servants should receive a decided rebuke; and if the Pacific Mail bribery charge of the Union has no foundation so far as Mr. Packard is concerned, we shall not feel sorry if its publishers are made to experience the full punishment of the law for* giving publicity and circulation to an unfounded charge of bribe-taking against a public officer. —Crown Point Register.