Customarily Scandalous

When a newspaper prints an objectionable personal reference, you can shoot the editor, but usually your only legal redress is to sue for libel. Not so in Minnesota. There they have a "Newspaper Suppression Act," called by libertarians a "Gag Law." Last week State Chief Justice S. B. Wilson ruled that the law does not violate the constitutional provision guaranteeing freedom of the press.

Minnesota's Gag Law, passed by the State Legislature in 1925, gives any district judge power to suppress any publication which in his opinion prints "malicious, scandalous and defamatory matter." To Hennepin County District Judge Fitting applied County Attorney Floyd B. Olson, in 1927, for an injunction to suppress the Minneapolis weekly, The Saturday Press. Said Attorney Olson: The Saturday Press was "a scandal sheet"; it had "maliciously slandered" him.* Judge Fitting agreed with Plaintiff Olson, issued a temporary injunction against The Saturday Press. Publishers Howard A. Guilford and J. M. Near appealed to the State Supreme Court; the appeal was denied, the injunction made permanent. Last week their second appeal to the State Supreme Court was denied. Ruled the court "[The Saturday Press] was regularly and customarily devoted to malicious, scandalous and defamatory matter. ... In our opinion, the law violates neither the State nor the Federal Constitution." Counsel for The Saturday Press promised that the case will be appealed to the U. S. Supreme Court.

*In the course of a series of 13 articles on vice in Minneapolis, The Saturday Press said that Attorney Olson was either blind to conditions or had a motive for not prosecuting.

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