AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PENNSYLVANIAN
did not receive another vote in the senate or house. Penrose said I ought to have presented the measure two years before, when it could have been passed. I think a large majority of the members of the legislature and of the people would have been pleased to have seen it a part of our statutory law, but the legislators and the party leaders were both timid. The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak. It is the true solution of the difficulty, nevertheless. Intentional falsehood is not information and cannot hide itself behind the liberty of the press. To indulge in malice is not to publish a newspaper. Obscene literature may be destroyed as a nuisance, and on the same principle, the Government of the United States throws out of the mails everything of this character.
Penrose had heard that I proposed to urge a reapportionment of the state into senatorial and legislative districts. He said to me:
“If you wish to recommend reapportionment in a perfunctory way, you may do it, of course, but it will have no effect. The thing cannot be done. It has been tried too often.”
I replied:
“Senator, I intend to recommend it, and not in a perfunctory way, but with the intention to have it done, if possible.”
Among the milder comments was this brochure, which appeared in the New York Globe, under the name of Wallace Irwin:
| Pennypacker of Penn |
| One moment, please, while a line I scan |
| To a genial, popular, elderly man, |
| Who's always able and willing to bless |
| The noble gentlemen of the press. |
| For the friends are many |
| Of Governor Penny— |
| Pennypacker of Penn. |
