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1st Amendment birthed
on pages much like this one
[Editor’s note: A reader
asked us to republish a letter to the editor that appeared on this page
March 15, 2000. We are glad to reprint the following.]
How ‘letters to the editor ‘ gave us 1st Amendment
When he was 15 years old, working as an apprentice in his brother’s
newspaper, Benjamin Franklin and his brother took issue with the ethics
of the Boston City Council on a matter involving conflicts of interest.
Fearing the wrath of the council, his brother would not publish these
views in his paper.
Soon, a series of anonymous letters critical of the City Council’s
actions began appearing daily under the door of the paper’s office
when Ben and his brother opened for business each morning. The paper published
these “letters to the editor.”
After receiving a few of these letters under the door, Ben’s brother
began to suspect who the author was; so he laid a trap and caught Ben
at dawn as he was slipping another letter under the door jam.
However, the main charges already had been published; feeling libeled,
the council had Ben’s brother arrested. They demanded that he name
the source of the critical letters. He refused to implicate his younger
brother as the author of the letters, and he remained in jail for several
months as Ben continued to publish the paper.
Broken in health and spirit after his imprisonment in an 18th century
jail, Ben’s brother finally was released, but he harbored resentment
toward Ben as the cause of his misfortune. Soon afterwards, young Ben
ran off to begin a new career in publishing in Philadelphia.
The rest of Ben’s story is history, and there was one final chapter
written at the end of his life.
The ordeal from powerful men taking legal action against a publisher to
suppress criticism from “letters to the editor” became the impetus
for Franklin’s insisting that Freedom of the Press be the first amendment
to the Constitution of the United States of America listed in the Bill
of Rights, first among the many freedoms we enjoy as citizens of the United
States of America.
Frank Cawood
Peachtree City
[Editor’s note: Frank Cawood is a stockholder in The Citizen’s
parent company.]
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