A vastly more important and interesting query, and one which must arise from the present state and tendency of industrial conditions, is whether the acts of men in commercial activity may ever become so prominent, and so far-reaching in their effect, that it can well be said that they compel a universal public interest, and that public comment is impliedly invited by reason of their conspicuous and semi-public nature. It may be said that at no time have private industries become of such startling interest to the community at large as at present in the United States. At least a few have had an effect more vital to citizens, perhaps, than the activities of some classes of public officials which are open to fair comment, and certainly more vital than the management of some semi-public institutions, which also are open to honest criticism.
As to corporations, it would seem that, as the public, through the chartering power of legislation, gives them a right to exist and act, an argument that the public retains the right to comment upon their management must have some force; in the case of other forms of commercial activity, whose powers are inherent and not delegated, the question must rest on the determination of the best public policy—a determination which in all classes of cases decides, and ought to decide, the right of fair comment.
When once the comment is decided to be upon a matter of public interest, there arises the question whether or not the comment is fair. The requirement of the law in regard to fairness is not based, as might be supposed, upon the consideration whether comment is mild or severe, serious or ridiculing, temperate or exaggerated; the critic is not hampered in the free play of his honest opinions; he is not prohibited from using the most stinging satire, the most extravagant burlesque, or the most lacerating invective.
In 1808, Lord Ellenborough, in Carr vs. Hood, stated the length of leash given to the critic, and the law has not since been changed. Sir John Carr, Knight, was the author of several volumes, entitled _A Stranger in France_, _A Northern Summer_, _A Stranger in Ireland_, and other titles of equal connotation. Thomas Hood was rather more deserving of a lasting place in literature than his victim, because of his sense of humor, and his well-known rapid-fire satire. According to the declaration of Sir John Carr, the plaintiff, Hood had published a book of burlesque in which there was a frontispiece entitled “The Knight leaving Ireland with Regret,” and “containing and representing in the said print, a certain false, scandalous, malicious and defamatory and ridiculous representation of said Sir John in the form of a man of ludicrous and ridiculous appearance holding a pocket handkerchief to his face, and appearing to be weeping,” and also representing “a malicious and ridiculous man of ludicrous and ridiculous appearance following the said Sir John,” and bending under the weight of several books, and carrying a tied-up pocket handkerchief with “Wardrobe” printed thereon, “thereby falsely scandalously and maliciously meaning and intending to represent, for the purpose of rendering the said Sir John ridiculous and exposing him to laughter, ridicule and contempt,” that the books of the said Sir John “were so heavy as to cause a man to bend under the weight thereof, and that his the said Sir John’s wardrobe was very small and capable of being contained in a pocket handkerchief.” And at the end of this declaration Sir John alleged that he was damaged because of the consequent decline in his literary reputation, and, it may be supposed, because thereafter his books did not appear in the list of the “six bestsellers” in the Kingdom.