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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 10, 1911
Socialist Editors of New Castle, Pennsylvania, Freed
From the Appeal to Reason of October 7, 1911:
New Castle Socialists Freed
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Charles McKeever, Frank M. Hartman and C. H. McCarty, editors of the Free Press, of New Castle, Pa., have been acquitted in the court of the charge seditious libel. This is the ease that has attracted so much attention all over the country. They are arraigned under an obsolete English law that was supposed to have been off the statute books of every civilized state. Had there been no publicity given to the matter no doubt the comrades would have been convicted, but when the people began to realize that a law belonging to the middle ages was sought now as a means of upholding the capitalist system there was such an awakening that conviction became an impossibility.
Although the seditious libel case was decided in favor of the defense, the unheard of action was taken of assessing them half the costs of the prosecution. All the costs of defense and half the cost of prosecution, when they were found not guilty, is a hard burden for them to bear and is an outrage against so-called civilization in America.
But in addition to this, they are under sentence of a fine for contempt of court. This case has cost them a great deal and the flight against the life of the Free Press has lasted for eighteen months. As a result it has been a severe blow to the comrades. Those who wish to help in this fight now that it is won should send fifty cents for an annual subscription to the Free Press.
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HE case against the comrades comprising the committee engaged in the publication of the New Castle Free Press, charged with “seditious libel,” was tried under what was known as the old English common law. This law against “seditious libel” was framed at a time when kings ruled by divine right, and in order to establish the guilt of the “pestiferous” McKeever, Hartman, McCarty and White, the prosecutor of Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, cited a case that occurred during the reign of Charles II. A score of Irish peasants raised a rebellion, so the prosecutor read, against the English land lords. These Irish peasants were arrested, charged with “seditious libel” and sentenced to prison. That was nearly four hundred years ago, yet we find a fossilized county prosecutor referring to it today in an effort to convict these four comrades of ours. It would be laughable were it not for the serious consequences that are likely to follow this New Castle trial for “seditious libel.”
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CTIVITY in the socialist movement presents some complex situations, some unusual rewards.