Reason For Existence

When the Minneapolis weekly, The Saturday Press, campaigned against civic corruption in 1927 it was suppressed without jury trial under the State's "gag law" (TIME, Dec. 30, 1929). Last week the case, now a celebrated one throughout the U. S. Press, was heard by the U. S. Supreme Court. During the argument, Justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis made an observation which made many an editorial heart leap with gratitude. Said he: "Of course there was defamation. You cannot disclose evil without naming the doers or evil. . . . [Even if the statements were not all true] a newspaper cannot always wait until it gets the judgment of a court. ... [If their campaign] is not one of the things for which the Press chiefly exists, then for what does it exist?"

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