THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
sycophancy and obsequiousness but too apt to create in their minds extravagant notions of their greatness and popularity. It is an historic experience that some of them have thus fallen into the strangest delusions and errors. This danger would be still greater were their dignity artificially supported by laws restraining adverse criticism, and were presidents thus encouraged in the belief that by virtue of law they stand above the rest of mankind. That this would not be a healthy and profitable state of mind for the first officer of a republic, needs no argument. And secondly, if such a law had any influence at all, it would be not merely to prevent wanton vilification of the chief magistrate, but also to discourage legitimate and useful criticism of his official conduct. It is a significant fact that after the assassination of President McKinley there were hysterical outcries by vehement advocates of restrictive legislation against those who had opposed and criticised certain policies of the Administration in a perfectly legitimate way, as virtual instigators and accomplices of the assassin. It is easy to see how liable restrictive laws might be to gross and dangerous abuse in times of great excitement.
In my opinion the American people cannot be too careful in guarding the freedom of speech and of the press against any curtailment as to the discussion of public affairs and the character and conduct of public men. In fact, if our newspaper press has become at all more licentious than in olden times, it is in the way of recklessly invading social privacy and of the publication of private scandals. The discussion of public matters and the treatment of men in office, especially in high office, has gradually become very much more discreet and lenient than it was in the early times of the Republic. Private scandal may perhaps be repressed by a strengthening of the
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