Opinion of the Court. ject. We do not think that there is any reversible error in the ruling. It is further objected that the court did not submit the question to the jury whether the innuendo of the petition was sustained by the libel, because issue had been joined on the innuendo, and that the defendant was entitled to have the question of the meaning of the article submitted to the jury as a question of fact. From a reading of the charge of the court it seems to us that the question what the article in fact did mean was most fully left to the jury. The court refused to give a charge on the subject which was requested by the defendant below. That charge was as follows: "In order to entitle the plaintiff to recover in this action it will be necessary that he shall satisfy you by a reasonable preponderance of proof of the allegation of that part of the petition usually called the 'innuendo,' that is to say, that by the article published the defendant intended to charge said Hallam with having requested his supporters to cast their votes upon the last ballot for Berry for a pecuniary consideration to be paid by said Berry, and especially that he should pay to the St. Nicholas Hotel the bill incurred by said Hallam for the food and drink ordered by him, and unless you shall find that the defendant did so intend and charge you will find for the defendant." The charge was rightly refused. The question in the case was not what the defendant intended to charge in the article, but what in fact it did charge, and what the public who were to read the article might reasonably suppose it intended to charge. Curtis v. Mussey, 6 Gray, 261. No error can be based on the refusal of the court to give the charge stated. Finally we come to those errors assigned which are based on the charge of the court in regard to privileged communications. The court, in effect, told the jury that the article in question, relating as it did to a matter of public interest, came within a class of communications that were conditionally privileged, that the public acts of public men (and that candidates for office were public men) could lawfully be made the subject of comment and criticism, not only by the press, but Opinion of the Court. also by all members of the public, for the press had no higher rights than the individual, but that while criticism and comment, however severe, if in good faith, were privileged, false allegations of fact, as, for instance, that the candidate had committed some disgraceful acts, were not privileged, and that, if the charges were false, good faith and probable cause were no defense, though they might mitigate damages. Counsel for the plaintiff in error, the defendant below, have argued with great vigor, and an array of authorities, that we ought not to adopt the view of the Circuit Court upon this important question, but should hold that the privilege extends to statements of fact as well as comment. The argument is this: Privileged communications comprehend all bona fide statements in performance of any duty, whether legal, moral or social, even though of imperfect obligation, when made with a fair and reasonable purpose of protecting the interests of the person making them or the interests of the person to whom they are made. Townshend on Slander and Libel (4th ed.), § 209. It is of the deepest interest to the public that they should know facts showing that a candidate for office is unfit to be chosen; therefore, every one who has reasonable ground for believing and does believe that such a candidate has committed disgraceful acts affecting his fitness should have the right to give the public the benefit of his information, unless malice is shown. Though of imperfect obligation, it is said to be the highest duty of the daily newspaper to keep the public informed of facts concerning those who are seeking their suffrages and confidence. Can it be possible, it is asked, that public policy will make privileged an unfounded charge of dishonesty or criminality against one seeking private service when made to the private individual with whom service is sought, and yet will not extend the same protection to him who in good faith informs the public of charges against applicants for public service? Is it not, at least, as important that the high functions of public office should be well discharged as that those in private service should be faithful and honest? The a fortiori step in this reasoning is only apparent. It is not real. The existence and Opinion of the Court. extent of privilege in communications is determined by balancing the needs and good of society with the right of an individual to enjoy a good reputation when he has done nothing which ought to injure his reputation. The privilege. should always cease where the sacrifice of the individual right becomes so great that the public good to be derived from it is outweighed. Where conditional privilege is extended to cover statements of disgraceful facts to a master concerning a servant, or one applying for service, the privilege covers a bona fide statement on reasonable grounds to the master only, and the injury done to the servant's reputation is with the master only. This is the extent of the sacrifice which the rule compels the servant to suffer in what was thought to be, when the rule became law, a most important interest of society. But if the privilege is to extend to cases like that at bar, then a man who offers himself as a candidate must submit uncomplainingly to the loss of his reputation, not with one person only, or a small class of persons, but with every member of the public, whenever an untrue charge of disgraceful conduct is made against him, if only his accuser honestly believes the charge upon reasonable grounds. We think that not only is such a sacrifice not required of every one who consents to become a candidate for office, but that. to sanction such a doctrine would do the public more harm than good. We are aware that public officers and candidates for public office are often corrupt when it is impossible to make legal proof thereof, and of course it would be well if the public could be informed in such a case of what lies hidden by concealment and perjury from judicial investigation. But the danger that honorable and worthy men may be driven from politics and public service by allowing too great latitude in attacks upon their characters outweighs any benefit that might occasionally accrue to the public from charges of corruption that are true in fact but are incapable of legal proof. The freedom of the press is not in danger from the enforcement of the rule we uphold. No one reading the newspaper of the present day can be impressed with the idea that statements of fact Opinion of the Court. concerning public men and charges against them are unduly guarded or restricted, and yet the rule complained of is the law in many of the States of the Union and in England. In Davis v. Shepstone, 11 App. Cas. 187, Lord Chancellor Herschell delivered the judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in an appeal from a judgment for libel recovered in the Supreme Court of Natal. The plaintiff below was a resident commissioner of Great Britain in Zululand, and the alleged libel charged him with having committed unprovoked and altogether indefensible assaults upon certain Zulu chiefs. The publication was made in the colony of Natal, where the conduct of the resident commissioner in Zululand was of great public interest. It was claimed that the article was conditionally privileged, and that the plaintiff ought to succeed only on proof of express malice. This claim was denied. The Lord Chancellor thus stated the law: "There is no doubt that the public acts of a public man may lawfully be made the subject of fair comment or criticism, not only by the press, but by all members of the public. But the distinction cannot be too clearly borne in mind between comment or criticism and allegations of fact, such as that disgraceful acts have been committed or discreditable language used. It is one thing to comment upon or criticise, even with severity, the acknowledged or proved acts of a public man, and quite another to assert that he has been guilty of particular acts of miscon duct. In the present case the appellants, in the passages which were complained of as libelous, charged the respondent, as now appears without foundation, with having been guilty of specific acts of misconduct, and then proceeded on the assumption that the charges were true, to comment upon his proceedings in language in the highest degree offensive and injurious; not only so, but they themselves vouched for the statements by asserting that though some doubt had been thrown upon the truth of the story, the closest investigation would prove it to be correct. In their lordships' opinion there is no warrant for the doctrine that defamatory matter thus published is regarded by the law as the subject of any privilege." Other English cases laying down the same doctrine are: Campbell v. Opinion of the Court. Spottiswoode, 3 Fost. & Fin. 421, 432, affirmed 3 B. & S. 769, and Popham v. Pickburn, 7 H. & N. 891, 898. The latest American case and the most satisfactory is that of Burt v. Advertiser Newspaper Company, 154 Mass. 238, 242, where Justice Holmes discusses the question and quotes with approval the foregoing passage from the judgment in Davis v. Shepstone. Other American cases approving the same rule are Smith v. Burrus, 106 Missouri, 94, 101; Wheaton v. Beecher, 66 Michigan, 307; Bronson v. Bruce, 59 Michigan, 467; Brewer v. Weakley, 2 Overton, 99; Sweeney v. Baker, 13 West Va. 158, 183; Hamilton v. Eno, 81 N. Y. 116, 126; Rearick v. Wilcox, 81 Illinois, 77; Negley v. Farrow, 60 Maryland, 158, 176; Jones v. Townsend's Administratrix, 21 Florida, 431, 451; The Banner Publishing Company v. The State, 16 Lea (Tenn.), 176; The Post Publishing Co. v. Moloney, 50 Ohio St. 71, 89; Seely v. Blair, Wright (Ohio), 358, 683; Wilson v. Fitch, 41 California, 383; Edwards v. San José Printing and Publishing Society, 99 California, 431; The State v. Schmitt, 49 N. J. Law, 579, 586; and Eviston v. Cramer, 57 Wisconsin, 570. In The Post Publishing Co. v. Moloney, supra, the Supreme Court of Ohio says, with reference to the doctrine that statements of fact should be regarded as privileged when made concerning a candidate for an office, as follows: "We do not think the doctrine either sound or wholesome. In our opinion, a person who enters upon a public office, or becomes a candidate for one, no more surrenders to the public his private character, than he does his private property. Remedy by due course of law, for injury to each, is secured by the same constitutional guaranty, and the one is no less inviolate than the other. To hold otherwise, would, in our judgment, drive reputable men from public positions, and fill their places with others having no regard for their reputation; and thus defeat the purpose of the rule contended for, and overturn the reason upon which it is sought to sustain it. That rule has not been generally adopted in this country. And the converse of it has hitherto obtained in this State." The view we have taken of the main question makes it unnecessary for us to consider whether the privilege claimed |