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HE third week of the trial at Syracuse had little of that dramatic quality which marked the opening phases of the contest. To begin with (if not to end with), Mr. Roosevelt, instead of occupying the witness chair, spent a large part of his time seated with his lawyers at the counsel table reading from "The Acharnians" Aristophanes. With Mr. Roosevelt out of the witness chair, the trial changed from a duel of personalities waged in the familiar arena of political history to a fight over the admission of evidence, legal definition, and the peculiarly moribund memory of reluctant witnesses called, but by no means chosen, by the defense.

Most plays finish up the work of exposition in the first act. Then the theater-goer is permitted to sit back and enjoy the sequence of the story as it is told. The Syra cuse trial, however, is not being staged by playwrights—a fact that reminds one that al! of Shakespeare's plays are to be found in the dictionary save that the words are not in the proper order. Perhaps the counsel for Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Bowers and his associates, cannot be blamed for the appearance of confusion, for if any examiners ever had to extract more material from a less communicative group of witnesses they are to be pitied. Mr. Bowers was really very much in the position of a playwright attempting to create an extemporaneous drama. Such cues as he gave his actors they apparently possessed not the slightest ability to remember. The scenario (in the form of the records of corporations under fire) was either mislaid or written in a cipher the key to which had been lost. During the process of rehearsal attorneys for the plaintiff exercised to the full their prerogative of objecting to every "line" in the play. And over Mr. Bowers's head hung the very real threat that the judge, whom we may call owner of the theater in which the trial is being staged, would exercise his right to obliterate officially from the minds of the jury (the audience) every other "act " in the play that was struggling into life.

WHAT A LIBEL SUIT MEANS

The burden of proof in a libel suit, as any one who has watched through a single day of

the Syracuse trial very well comes to understand, always rests upon the defense. The character of the plaintiff as well as the defendant are matters of concern for the jury, but the real fight takes place on these two questions: Were the charges made by the defendant true? Were they made without malice ?

A libel is everything written or printed which reflects on the character of another and is published without lawful justification, whatever the intention of the publisher may have been. The communication of such libelous matter to another requesting or intending that the latter should publish it renders one liable to be sued. Every repetition of defamatory words constitutes a new publication and a new cause for action.

When publication of libelous matter is proved, as has been done in the trial between Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Barnes, the defense must show that the publication complained of was true and that it was not malicious. A complete defense must cover both of these points, and must be made as broad as the defamatory accusation in order to constitute complete justification. Certain forms of criticism made upon the acts of a man in public life are more or less privileged. Judge Andrews has so far reserved his decision as to whether the criticisms made by Mr. Roosevelt fall in any way in this class.

EVIDENCE OFFERED IN JUSTIFICATION In his endeavor to make a complete defense to his charge that Mr. Barnes represented the alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, and that as the head of the Republican machine in New York State Mr. Barnes had a working agreement with the Democratic organization, Mr. Roosevelt has attempted to establish a connection between Mr. Barnes and the Albany printing ring, and by his own testimony and that of such men as Senator Davenport, Senator Hinman, Senator Agnew, and Mr. Franklin D. Roosevelt he has also endeavored to show the closeness of the bond between the Democratic and the Republican machines. Judge Andrews has admitted to final record a large amount of testimony in justification of the charge that Mr. Barnes was in alliance with the Democratic machine. A larger amount of testi

mony has, temporarily at least, been brought before the jury (and finally before the court of public opinion) which tends to show that the printing business for the State of New York has been conducted in a grossly extravagant 'manner, that printing contracts have been awarded to favored bidders in violation of the spirit of the law, and that these same bidders failed even adequately to perform the work for which the State had so wastefully contracted. Similarly it has been shown that contracts required by laws which were obviously not placed on the statute-books in the interest of the State have been awarded for printing material which was not of the slightest value to the State. It has likewise been shown that again and again matter has been reprinted from the same type and that the State has paid for this work at the price of original composition. It has been shown that the records of the three concerns with which the State has done the largest amount of its printing business were kept in such form as almost to baffle the efforts of the most expert examiner.

In the same way the defense has produced testimony to show that the Albany Journal Company, of which Mr. Barnes is president and of which he owns a very large majority of the stock, has taken contracts for State printing which it had neither the plant nor the intention to fulfill. Again, it has been shown that many of these contracts have been handed over to the J. B. Lyon Company, of Albany, in which Mr. Barnes was a stockholder and from the president of which for two years he received a salary of ten thousand dollars a year. Why this salary was paid to Mr. Barnes has not yet directly appeared, nor does it seem likely that the reason can ever be proved other than by inference.

It has been shown that even on some contracts from the State, county, and city of Albany, which the J. B. Lyon Company apparently secured for itself, a commission has been paid to the Journal Company. Furthermore, it has been apparently shown that Mr. Barnes at the time he was receiving a salary from Mr. J. B. Lyon attempted to persuade the then. Governor-elect Roosevelt to abandon his plan for the establishment of a State printing plant, on the ground that it would affect his financial interests "seriously if not fatally."

In the course of the trial Mr. Roosevelt's attorneys have run aground on many legal snags, not the least difficult to surmount being that of the Corporation Law. It has

not been enough to show that Mr. Barnes was the head and controlling factor in the Journal Company, and that the Journal Company as a whole profited by grossly wasteful contracts given to another concern in which Mr. Barnes was a stockholder and from which the Journal Company received constant commissions. The Court has held that complete justification by the defense can be made only if it is shown first that Mr. Barnes had specific knowledge of the facts regarding the individual contracts, and that he exerted his political influence improperly in behalf of the concern with which the Journal Company was in working alliance. The fact that the minute books of the directors' meetings of the J. B. Lyon Company during the time in which Mr. Barnes was a stockholder are curiously missing, and that the original cost sheets of that. company and other data bearing on the actual cost of the printing done have beer. destroyed or mislaid, has no legal bearing on the chain of evidence by which Mr. Rooscvelt's attorneys have attempted to connect Mr. Barnes with what has been known as the Albany printing ring.

Of course all this evidence has reached the attention of the jury, as it has reached the ears of the public. Those who have been in the court-room have been able to form an opinion of the justness of Mr. Roosevelt's charges, based upon the frank attitude and open manner of the defendant and his witnesses and the attitude of the plaintiff and the men who have been in business relations with him as much as from the testimony finally admitted to the court record. The outcome of the case is, of course, still in doubt. Much depends upon what Judge Andrews finally permits to go before the jury and upon his charge as to the legal niceties of the case. It can be said without equivocation, however, whatever the decision of the jury, that Mr. Roosevelt during the progress of his defense has performed a noteworthy public service in baring the methods. and customs that have endured for so long in New York State's public printing. This trial should put a final quietus upon that scandalous state of affairs.

Those who have followed day by day the progress of this exhausting trial, who have watched the tempers and the patience of almost every one connected with the affair (except the defendant) being worn to a razor's edge, who have realized the exacting labors connected with the unearthing of the printing

dent and principle, will hardly agree with the elevator boy in the Hotel Onondaga who, when told that the Court had cut down the sittings from six hours to five, remarked judicially, "Them ain't bad hours, is they?"

They at least have been "bad hours " indeed for the printers of Albany and the astute Republican leader of Albany County. Syracuse, May 9. HAROLD T. PULSIFER.

Since the writing of this correspondence Judge Andrews has ruled on two important phases of the case as put forward by the defense. In Mr. Roosevelt's direct testimony he gave as the source of his information in regard to the printing scandals of Albany the report of the Bayne Committee of the Assembly. Judge Andrews has now decided that all the testimony painfully extracted by Mr. Bowers from the reluctant lips of the business associates of Mr. Barnes and from the peculiar records of the Journal Company and the J. B. Lyon Company must be stricken from the records so far as justification of the charge is concerned, on the ground that all this information could not have been known to Mr. Roosevelt when he published his alleged libelous article in last July. I cannot, obviously, pretend to criticise the legality of this ruling. То а layman, however, it seems that, on similar

forbidden to use any evidence against a prisoner other than that known to him at the time of the prisoner's indictment. The defendant in a libel suit is placed virtually in the position of a prosecuting attorney. Why should he not have as broad an opportunity for the securing of evidence as has the lawyer for the public? Legally the defense seems to have been caught "coming and going, for the rules of evidence have previously prevented Mr. Roosevelt from placing before the Court anything in regard to Mr. Barnes's political activities which he had reason to believe was true, but which he did not specifically mention in his "libelous " article. On this ground his counsel were prevented from attempting to connect Mr. Barnes with the gambling-houses and vice resorts of Albany.

Judge Andrews's second important ruling dealt with the definition of the word 66 corrupt." According to Judge Andrews, the charge of political corruption does not necessarily mean that the plaintiff was venal, but may mean that he was guilty of improper acts. While so far as justifying the charge is concerned Judge Andrews has cut the case for Mr. Roosevelt down to the bare skeleton, his latest rulings have made certain of the fact that the case will be sent to the jury.— H. T. P.

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HE Lusitania tragedy is treated elsewhere in this issue of The Outlook. Although eclipsed by the reports of this sea horror, other news from the nations at war during the week May 5 to May 12 was of considerable importance.

On both the eastern and western battle fronts the advantages of the week went to the Teutons. But in the east the successes won by the Teutonic allies were of greater significance than anything that has been done since the Russians pushed almost through the Carpathians after capturing Przemysl.

A BAD WEEK FOR RUSSIA

It was a bad week for Russia. Petrograd admits that the enemy captured Libau, on the

Baltic, and that they tnrew back the Russian 'right flank in western Galicia thirty miles, forcing the Slavs to retire from the line of the Dunajec to the line of the Wisloka. Incidentally the Austro-Germans captured Tarnow, a manufacturing city of 35,000 inhabitants, about a third of the way from Cracow to Przemysl.

In reading the despatches from the front it is easy to exaggerate the importance of purely local military movements. In simmering down the reports that come in during the space of a week, and in synthesizing a condensed history of the week from them, it is difficult to give that bit of history just the proportions it should have in relation to the (Continued on page following illustrations)

The torpedoing by a German submarine of the American steamer Gulflight, with the consequent death of Captain Alfred Gunter and two of his crew, has been almost forgotten in the world-wide horror and indignation aroused by the torpedoing of the Lusitania; but, as The Outlook pointed out last week, it constituted an international incident of the gravest character