MEET MR. BEITH
Putnam, Harold
Meet Mr. Beith By Harold Putnam A/AJOR GENERAL John Hay Beith is in the ^* United States now on his 17th visit to America.; Until January of this year he was director of public relations for the...
...Nov...
...From yellowed clippings, now almost 25 years old, it's possible to piece together the record of this British propagandist, to compare his meaningless generalities of 1941 with his equally meaningless generalities of 1917...
...What's more, he's reciting the same old cliches, in the same old manner, under the auspices of the same old organizations...
...Tarkington propagandizing Britain in behalf of a great American empire...
...Until January of this year he was director of public relations for the British War Office...
...They call him the "British Tarkington"—intending it for mutual flattery...
...They saved civilization, and I think it is not too much to say that they altered the course of history...
...It isn't such a bad simile though—if you can picture Tory Mr...
...18, 1916: "I have been particularly impressed^ by the change which the war has brought in the lives of the women...
...Diplomatically he skirt3 around the edges of all social, economic, and political problems that might interest intelligent American listeners...
...Feb...
...Newspaper account...
...15, 1917: "We all want peace, but not a peace that will leave humanity at the mercy of a megalomaniac...
...Newspaper account...
...23, 1941: "Your support has been generous...
...What he stands for, nobody knows...
...23, 1941: "We will never make peace with" that paranoiac Hitler...
...Nov...
...what Britain should stand for—never having betrayed any humanitarian instincts, he doesn't say...
...23, 1941: "I must mention the changed status and the magnificent service of our women...
...Dutifully he recites the unhappy experiences of London during the blitz...
...Nov...
...Today his pet topic is "London Under Fire...
...Anxious to be all things to all men-while American entry into the war hangs in the balance—he has left Boston being nothing to anybody...
...Oct...
...15, 1917: Beith said that Lloyd George is the man in whom all Great Britain has the utmost confidence...
...He Is Nothing To Anybody In 1917 Beith lectured throughout the country on "The Human Side of Trench Warfare...
...Feb...
...We will never forget you for it...
...Nov...
...His audiences have not been large, his lectures have been awfully...
...23, 1941: "Winston Churchill, our leader, is one of the greatest ever...
...The results are not flattering to the British cause...
...He admits quite freely in his daily lectures to interventionist audiences that he's "covering almost the same territory that I covered during the last World War...
...It may yet be recorded that this was one of the great turning points of history...
...Feb...
...what Britain stands for, he isn't saying...
...15, 1917: Beith said America's action in breaking with Germany had heartened the Allies...
...23, 1941: "British soldiers never fought better or more effectively than they did at Dunkirk on June 3, 1940...
...Nov...
...15, 1917: "That little Army (of the Western Front) has disappeared . . . They fought deliberately to gain time...
...Beith is also an author of "light fiction...
...Beith Repeats Himself Feb...
...dull, but he's been an indefatigable worker in the British behalf...
...All the women are doing something of real value to humanity—you could not say^ that three years ago...
Vol. 5 • December 1941 • No. 49
