either
through perjury or subornation of perjury. A newspaper publishes the
interview or the speech, giving the speaker's name and the exact
language he used. If the candidate referred to should sue the newspaper
for libel because of this publication, it would be no defense for the
publishers to show that it was _true_ that the speaker had said just
exactly what the newspaper represented him to have said. To justify they
would have to show that the defamatory charge was true, that the
candidate had been guilty of perjury or subornation of perjury in
obtaining his naturalization papers.

In other words, no publishers or writers can escape responsibility for
defaming a man's character by showing that it was on the authority of
some other individual.

The same principle applies to defamatory accusations republished from
another newspaper, whether the name of the newspaper from which they
are copied is given or not.

PRIVILEGED PUBLICATIONS

There is a certain class of publications concerning official proceedings
which, although they be defamatory in character, public policy demands
that publishers should be protected in making, entirely regardless of
the question whether the defamatory matter be true or false. These are
termed "privileged publications" and are defined by law.

The mere fact that a paper is _entitled_ as being in a certain suit or
that _its contents are sworn to_ does not necessarily make it a part of
any "judicial, legislative or other public and official proceedings."
Such proceedings must actually and legally have been instituted before
it becomes entitled to the privilege.

_An instance_ would be the publication of libelous statements taken from
a complaint or affidavit that had been sworn to in a suit but before
_the paper had been actually introduced in the trial of the case_. Here
there would be no privilege.

The same would be true of an affidavit charging crime on a person which
had not before the publication of it been presented to and judicially
recognized by the committing or police magistrate.

Criticism is also privileged in a limited degree. Nowhere else in the
world, not even in England, is so great freedom of legitimate criticism
allowed and protected by law as in the United States.

The Constitution of the United States provides: "Congress shall make no
law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press."

The Constitution of Michigan provides: "Every citizen may freely spea