The Editor, the Chief, and the Libel He Could Not Prove

The trial of Charles H. Lugrin, editor of the Telegraph, charged with criminally libeling Chief of Police Rogers, came to an end in the municipal court yesterday, the defendant being found guilty. The Post-Intelligencer has refrained from commenting on this case so long as it was before the court, but now that a verdict has been reached by the jury, a brief review of it will not be out of place.

The Telegraph published against Chief Rogers an article of the most defamatory character. It charged him with open and notorious corruption in office and made accusations which were certainly intended to injure him in the estimation of his fellow citizens. The only possible justification for the publication of such an article could be its absolute truth. This the Telegraph declared its ability to prove. It stated that it only desired an opportunity to prove all that it had charged, and that it would do this to the satisfaction of all men whenever and wherever it was accorded an opportunity to present the proofs in its possession.

This opportunity was accorded when Chief Rogers procured the arrest of Mr. Lugrin, supposed to be the responsible editor of the Telegraph, on a charge of criminal libel. A change in the tactics of the Telegraph at once followed. Instead of coming boldly forward with proofs of the truth of his charges as he had promised, Mr. Lugrin sought to evade the issue by taking advantage of every legal technicality. His attorneys fought for delays and endeavored in every way to secure a dismissal of the case without entering into its merits. Every quibble was made use of. Mr. Lugrin sought to escape on the unworthy quibble that the paper of which he was supposed to be editor had been described in the complaint as the Daily Telegraph instead of as the Telegraph, and on the equally unworthy quibble that no proof had been offered that the paper is published in Seattle. He failed to acknowledge that he was the responsible editor of the Telegraph, and the employees of the paper sought to avoid testifying to the truth of this fact. In every way he sought to escape conviction, not on the merits of the case, not by making good his charges or by attempting to do so, but by wriggling out through the loophole of a legal quibble.

When these tactics failed, however, and it became evident that the case must go to the jury on its merits, Mr. Lugrin’s attorneys announced that they had no defense to offer. Not the slightest attempt was made to make good a single one of the charges against Chief Rogers. The opportunity for which the Telegraph had professed to long had come, but the mass of evidence which would convince all reasonable men was not produced. Not the shadow of an effort was made to justify the article assailing Chief Rogers—an article which was either true or infamous. Without attempting to prove the charges which he had made or to explain how he had been misled into making them if he had no proof, Mr. Lugrin allowed the case to go to the jury without defense or explanation and was promptly convicted.

We believe that Mr. Lugrin is more to be pitied than blamed—that he had been misled into writing the libelous article by information which was alleged to be false and unverifiable when put to the test. If this be true, the Telegraph has unquestionably done Chief Rogers a great wrong. In all fairness and truthfulness it should admit its error. We prefer to believe that Mr. Lugrin was misled into error rather than that he willfully perpetrated a criminal libel against a fellow citizen.