Clawson v. Longview Publishing Co.

(dissenting) — There was a time when a defamation was generally avenged by resort to the duel, formal or informal, a recourse which was never favored by society, which offered the civil libel action as a more sober substitute. That men would risk death, as well as inflict it, to preserve their honor indicates something of the intensity of feeling with which a person's good name is regarded. While today the law provides a remedy to a person defamed, that remedy is severely restricted where he is a public official or a public figure.

*420There is no contention here that the respondent was a public…