Word: zenger
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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When Manhattan lawyers were no longer permitted or willing to enter the case of John Peter Zenger in 1735, an eminent Philadelphian named Andrew Hamilton was called in to defend Printer Zenger on charges of seditious libel of New York's Governor. Indignation which importation of a Philadelphia lawyer created among Manhattan burghers quickly changed to admiration, however, when Lawyer Hamilton's brilliant defense secured Printer Zenger's acquittal, established freedom of the U. S. Press. Also established was the folk-usage of "Philadelphia lawyer" as a synonym for shrewdness...
Looking on hawk-eyed at all this was an earnest German-born New Yorker named John Peter Zenger. Onetime apprentice to Publisher William Bradford of New York City's only newspaper, the New York Weekly Gazette, he had set himself up as a printer, though continuing to contribute occasionally to the Gazette. When William Bradford, numbed by official censorship, saw Printer Zenger's frank account of the election he threw up his hands, refused to print it. John Peter Zenger forthwith started a newspaper of his own, the New York Weekly Journal, came out next week with...
John Peter Zenger could set up his stories in type far better than he could write them. But to Governor Cosby the facts of corruption and tyranny revealed were as awkward as Zenger's syntax. He had several numbers of the Journal publicly burned, threw John Peter Zenger into jail on a charge of seditious libel...
...libel." Darrow-like, Lawyer Hamilton turned to the jury. When he had finished talking to them they were convinced that the Press should be free to speak its mind about government officials within the limits of decency and truth. They set an historic precedent by adjudging John Peter Zenger not guilty...
...many a newspaperman it seemed last week that John Peter Zenger's anniversary could not have come at a more appropriate time. In Washington, NRA and newspaper representatives were still deadlocked over Sections 11 (free press) and 14 (open shop) of the proposed newspaper code. Throughout the land the Press rumbled and shrilled at the spectre of government licensing and union censorship which it saw implied in NRA's insistence on elimination of these sections. At the Inland Daily Press Association convention in Chicago last week Publisher McCormick and Secretary Edward H. Harris of the American Newspaper Publishers...