Random Editorial Ramblings

By Jack Dionne

Over a4d over, and still over again, Harry Carr, writing in the Los Angeles Times, openly hurls insults at an honorable aggregation of men-the lumber manufacturers of California-referring to them as ..murderers,', and to the cutting of trees for commercial purposes as ,.murder". Protest to the Times management has been of no avail. The attacks continue.

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Once, after a particularly vicious attack, the writer of this column sent a letter to Mr. Carr, assuming-as who would not-that he was a fair man, and would present the facts once they were shown him. We gave the lumber side of the tree cutting proposition. The letter was courteously written. It asked for justice and fair play. The facts it contained were rock-bound. The conclusions drawn were logical, truthful, and demonstrable as two plus two equals four. Neither Mr. Carr nor any other man, could shake them. ft seemed right, in the face of Mr. Carr's continual denunciations, that the public should know the truth. A minimum of fair dealing would have been the publication of the letter. A modicum of fair play would have been the controverting of the facts presented, or a disconlinuance of persecution. The facts were not printed. The persecution increased.

A courteous note came from Mr. Carr. It seemed to promise a square deal, caused us to expect the publication of the facts, and perhaps a sportsmanlike review of them. Once again in our credulous career we were guilty of overestimation.

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It is the unwritten law among editors of worth that one indispensable pre-requisite of editorial writing is FAIR PLAY. Knowing the game to be a one-sided one since the other fellow cannot reach the editor's audience and debate him, or controvert statements made regardless of how devoid they may be of truth, a fundamental characteristic of honorable journalism is the square deal in editorial commef,rt-thd Golden Rule. Mr. Carr knows that. Yet in his dealings with this particular subject his acts havc been destitute of that spirit-rnildewed with intolerant prejudice.

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Surely the patience of the lumbermen must some day cease to be a virtue, and they must take some action to .dam this particularly pernicious flow of diatrib*-this pre. sumptuous persecution. Or has the charge of ttmurder" become so small inthis somewhat Chicago-ized civilization? That it has hurt their business, there can be no doubt; and it continually outrages their sense offair play.

And whence comes this tide of calumny? From an old and honored publication, whose sense of justice was once held in high esteem. Give him the plain facts and no nor_ mal man possessed of sufficient intelligence to succe.ssfully evade the lunatic asylum will put any faith in this ,.tree murder" stuff. But let him hear but one side, with no reply, no protest, no apparent attempt at refutation from the other side, and he will instinctively assume its truttr-

Now, the statement that the men who cut down Redwood trees for commercial purposes are murderers, is an infernal slander; and the continued development of that impression (deliberately blind to the real facts in the case) is shame_ less fraud. But unless the public is told the difierence, it will always be a one-sided game, \rith the lumbermen always on the short end.

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Every morning Mr. Carr takes his pen iq hand and. dispenses through the columns of The Times a particularly attenuated variety of wind pudding. Here he swaggers his opinions. .Here he daily settles all worldly ditriculties_ solves all mankind's problems. One g"it "r. from the tone of the column that the writer considers his bucolic ideas to be a perpetual revelation of truth itself. Often, in reading them, the lines of Pope come to mind:_ ft is on this grill that the lumbennen are frequently fried. He attacks them with an artificial savageiy that iu-orrstrates conclusively but one thing;-the adhesive qualities of Mr. Carr's prejudices.

"Old politicians chew on wisdom past, And totter on in business to the last, As weak, as earnest, and as gravely out, As sober Lanesbrough, dancing with the gout."

You would gather from his lumbering remarks (get that word) that so far as the lumbermen are concerned, sentiment and all other fine human tendencies have perished be- fore a pitiless commercialism; that the mill man strikes down for sordid gain and no good purpose, monuments of wood which the living God has been erecting through the ages; and chortles with fieqdish glee at his destruciive and ghoulish power. That's the picture the public gets ! Is it true? fs it honest? Is it fair? Let Mr. Carr publish the facts that have been sent him in the same outstanding man_ ner that he prints his attacks, and let the thinking leople say which is.wrong, and which right!

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