But though my eight hundred comrades seem to have been
gratified with my words, I cannot think that they were equally
satisfactory to the officials; for I am informed that Hawthorne's
writings are henceforth barred from the penitentiary. I must have hurt
their feelings in some way; no one can please everybody.
The naive surprise expressed in some local quarters outside the
penitentiary went to show how unexpected and almost incredible my
statements appeared to be--or, from another point of view, how
successfully hitherto the truth had been suppressed. The truth being
once unshackled, I was anxious to get the widest possible circulation
for it, and therefore arranged for its publication in various newspapers
distributed over the country; but I was not altogether sanguine that my
plan of public enlightenment would prove an unqualified success. The
System, as I have indicated, had several guns which it might bring to
bear, and it was conceivable that some of the editors who had subscribed
to the syndicate might find reason to regard the articles as not adapted
to the taste of their readers, and decline to risk offending them any
further. If other guns of the System should prove inadequate, there was
always the great gun to be depended upon, known as the Law for Libel. I
took what precautions I could with respect to this formidable and most
respectable weapon; I stipulated that a competent lawyer should read
each article before it was offered for publication, and inform me of any
passage in any of them which might be obnoxious to the provisions of
this law, in order that such passages might be modified or expunged.
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