Legal Disputes of Emigrant Periodical Publishers from the End of the 19th Century to 1904

The subject of the article is the formation of legal dispute practices among Lithuanian emigrant periodical publishers in the USA during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The aim is to analyze the legal cases brought against emigrant periodical publishers during this period, assessing their causes, aspects of the cases, their coverage in the press, and their consequences, based on scientific research and contemporary press publications. The main focus is on the 1897 case against the newspaper “Saulė” published in Mahanoy City, Pa., where publisher D. T. Bačkauskas was accused of violating a US postal ban by distributing immoral literature. Other notable cases include the 1898–1900 litigation involving Chicago newspaper “Lietuva” publisher A. Olšauskas and editor J. Šernas against local Lithuanian priest A. Kriaučiūnas over critical articles directed at him, and the lawsuit of Shenandoah, Pa. newspaper “Viltis” publisher V. Šlekys by A. Savickas, who accused the newspaper of defamation and demanded the disclosure of the article author’s name. The analysis of these and other cases from the period revealed that litigation was one of many manifestations of the ideological split within the emigrant community in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As the role of the press grew within the community, clergy, who constituted the majority of the right-wing leadership, found themselves losing the unchallenged authority they had in Lithuania and were unable to compensate for it through their own press and polemics against other factions. Therefore, they tried to exploit legal opportunities. The case against “Saulė” can be partially explained by its popularity within the emigrant community and its occasional positioning as a Catholic newspaper, which drew readers away from the still-weak right-wing press. Priest Kriaučiūnas’s struggle against “Lietuva” can be partly explained by his aim to undermine the influence of the liberal “Lietuva” on Chicago Lithuanians and to create favourable conditions for his newspaper “Katalikas” and its growing influence. Evaluating the causes of the cases, it is possible to discuss the complicated perception of the satirical genre within the emigrant community of that time. On one hand, the hyperbolization of problems and ills in the emigrant life attracted readers with engaging texts, but on the other, it was interpreted as propaganda for a dissolute lifestyle and rejection of religious norms, dismissing the satirical aspect.