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By James C. Johnston Jr.
President
Donald Trump has filed a law suit against Rupert Murdock owner of
many newspapers in the English-speaking world including The
New York Times. This
suit naming Murdock is for defamation regarding the well-known
friendship between Donald Trump and convicted child molester Jeffrey
Epstein. Now I am not going to go into these allegations. This is an
active case-in-law which will be decided in the courts. This article
is about suits at law, and if it might not be a very good idea not to
bring them. I do believe that Mr. Trump should look at a lawsuit
brought by Oscar Wilde against Lord John Sholto Douglas, the Ninth
Marquis of Queensberry as a precedent.
I
am going to pair this Trump
vs. Murdock suit
to a very famous one brought by an authentic genius in the world of
“Letters”, Oscar Wilde against that famous “Sports Man”, Lord
John Sholto Douglas, Marquis of Queensberry whose name is synonymous
with the rules of prizefighting. The Marquis had a son, of which he
was not proud, one Lord Alfred Douglas, who aspired to be a poet and
not a great “Sportsman” like dad. Lord Alfred Douglas was a
university student who found himself enamored with the leading
literary genius of the day, Oscar Wilde.
Wilde
was a great critic, poet, novelist, short story writer, magazine
publisher, and leading playwright of the late Victorian Period. Young
Alfred Douglas was wild about Wilde. There really was no telling
about who seduced who, but the fact remained that Lord Alfred Douglas
was twenty-years-old and Wilde was thirty-six when they first met. By
the time Wilde was thirty-eight and Douglas was twenty-two, they had
become lovers. Homosexuality in the Victorian Era, and deeply into
the Twentieth Century, was considered to be a very serious crime in
Great Britain punishable by long terms of imprisonment after the
death penalty for the crime had been abolished. In law, this crime
was termed “Gross Indecency.”
The
Marquis of Queensberry, on learning about his son and Wilde’s
romantic liaison, was livid to say the least. Queensberry attempted
to insult and humiliate Wilde at every turn and was frustrated by
Wilde’s ability to have him tossed out of public venues when he
tried to heckle Wilde publicly. At the time of his affair with Lord
Alfred, Wilde was at the top of his game with several hit plays
running on The Strand at the same time. Wilde was best friends with
the mistress of the Prince of Wales, Lilian Langtry. He was a close
friend of the great American artist James Mc Neill Wisler.
Oscar
Wilde was a famous leader of society, a friend of royalty, an
internationally famed lecturer who even was a big hit in the Wild
West of Judge Roy Bean lecturing on subjects like “estheticism”,
and “Interior Decoration” to cowboys in primitive saloons while
wearing his hair very long, dressed in velvet knee-pants, silk
stockings, and an impossibly foppish shirt, cravat, and silk coat!
Wilde was England’s leading man of letters in 1895 which is when
his pride led him to a great lapse in judgement. It is recorded that
the cowboys were most impressed by Wilde when he drank them all under
the table while never missing a beat.
The
frustrated Marquis of Queensberry decided to bring the matter of
Wilde’s relationship with his young son, Lord Alfred Douglas, to a
head. Queensberry went to Wilde’s Club and left a card to be
publicly posted addressed to Oscar Wilde “Posing as a Sodomite”.
This card was positioned for all to see. Wilde was outraged by this
event and did something very foolish. Wilde sued Queensberry for
slander for damage to his reputation. This proved to be, what was in
the end, a fatal mistake.
Wilde
went to court protesting his outrage with the Marquis’ posted and
written slander, and the Marquis of Queensberry’s lawyers proceeded
to, produce as witnesses: “Rent-Boys”, land lords, a host of
shabby characters, chamber maids, and legions of other witnesses of
all-sorts to prove that what the Marques had written, and had the
mis-spelled, was indeed the unvarnished truth. It even came out that
Wilde’s pet name for his young lover, Lord Alfred, was “Bosie”.
The not-too-well-concealed-cat was indeed well out of the bag. The
Marquis was found “Not Guilty.” Wilde’s reputation was in
shreds, and he was a broken man who was about to be punished by the
iron arm of the law.
Now,
in turn, Wilde was put on trial for “Gross Indecency”, found
guilty, and sent to prison eventually ending up at Reading Goal
[pronounced “Reading Jail”]. Wilde had a horrible time in his
first two prisons, but at Reading Gaol, he was allowed to write and
given easier tasks. The warden and his wife were inclined to kindness
regarding their famous prisoner. In the end, his trials and
tribulations, and physical and psychological suffering in prison
eventually helped to bring on his early death. While in his third
prison, Wilde wrote his famous “Ballard of Reading Goal” which I
recommend to Mr. Trump for his reading pleasure and general
edification.
Eventually
Oscar Wilde got out of jail. He was released early in the morning,
greeted by a small group of close friends, and whisked off. Wilde
then migrated to France. He was never to see his two sons again. His
beautiful and long-suffering wife and mother of his two, sons whose
names were changed from Wilde to Holland, died a relatively short
while later in 1898.
When Wilde died late in 1900, he was buried and later removed with
some small degree of honor to the most famous eternal resting place
in all of France, Le Cimetiere du Pere-Lachaise. He was laid to rest
in a fantastic tomb sculptured by Joseph Epstein, with a plinth
sculpted by Charles Holden, and inscription carved by Joseph Cribb.
If you are wondering who paid for Wilde’s most expensive last
resting place, money was raised by his agent, Robert Ross, who sold
Wilde’s works to his devoted fans, and by very wealthy Helen Carew
who all but worshiped Wilde as a demi-god. Oscar Wilde’s final
resting place is one of the most visited graves in the world.
The
inscription on Wilde’s tomb consist of lines taken from his poem,
The Ballard
of Reading Gaol, and
reads, “And
alien tears will fall for him Pity’s long broken urn, For his
mourners will be outcast men, And outcast men always mourn.”
Oscar
Wilde was only forty-six at the time of his death in 1900. John
Sholto Douglas, Ninth Marquis of Queensberry also died in January of
1900 before Wilde. He was only fifty-five years old. Life had exacted
a great toll from both of these men, and both are honored each in
their own way.
Donald
Trump is now going to sue Newspaper Magnate Rupert Murdock under
similar circumstances. Murdock is not in the habit of publishing edgy
stories without good and solid documentation, and Murdock has very
-very deep pockets, and he can afford the best legal talent in the
world. Donald Trump is a 34 time-convicted-felon of various types of
criminal enterprise who was ordered by a court of law to pay damages
of many millions of dollars to a woman who suffered rape, at his
hands according to that courts, and whose friendship with Jeffrey
Epstein is well documented on film and in many other well-sourced
places.
There
is no telling what living and dead icons will have their names
revealed as a result of this court case. I predict that many a saint
will fall in the eyes of a public still slightly addicted to
superficial Puritanism when names of Princes and famous folk are
exposed for practices of hedonism with under-aged girls. I do not
think that Mr. Murdock is too worried about this suit-at-law, but I
do think that Donald Trump would be wise to look at the history of
such suits. The Oscar
Wilde vs. The Marquis of Queensberry
suit is uncomfortably similar to Mr. Trump’s.
