September 21, 2025

By Arthur H.Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

When I was editorial page editor of the former Rockland Journal-News in Nyack, N.Y., I met a bully. Not in person but in writing.

Part of the job was to read what amounted to thousands of letters over the decades and make the difficult decision as to which would be published. We tried to run as many as possible and looked for varied viewpoints, including those from writers who did not agree with our general editorial view of social progress with fiscal responsibility.

I followed the sage advice of Grant Jobson, my predecessor, who sought letters “even irreverent and rough-hewn.” That dictum was accompanied by the suggestion from Jack Sutter, former general manager, who said editorials, the paper’s official voice, should always include all sides of any argument no matter how the paper stood. Do not drown voices with your own was Jack’s advice.

It was with the tutoring of Jobson and Sutter that one day I had to make a choice on running a letter from a political candidate whom we had criticized. In it, he took issue with our views but added that he wished I would get cancer and die. The letter ran as written.

Sometime later, almost at the end of my 42-year run at the RJ-N, after one of my two sons had offered unsolicited good wishes in retirement that the paper printed, the same fellow wrote a second letter, this time calling on the gods to make both my son and me ill because we obviously were flaming liberals bent on destroying the neighborhood.

That letter ran too.

The point is that even a bully has a voice, and no matter how it bites, let it be expressed. That is how debate unfolds. That is how hate is shown in the light of day. Let others then use their ability to reason the situation. No thought police. Hear voices “irreverent, even rough-hewn.”

A lesson on today’s free speech argument, of which there can be no argument really.

The writer is a retired newspaperman.

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