NEWSPAPERS AND THE WAR

...Said the Des Moines Capital: "If this nation is such a lover of peace and comfort, and fat upon its bones, as to listen to the pacifists who are now raging in New York and raging in Washington, the fate of our country is sealed...

...For, not only had the press indulged in an irresponsible speculation but it had shown itself as a whole hostile to any suggestion for peaceful settlement...

...Has Betrayed 1'eople IN THAT quotation is expressed the indictment which the American public may bring against the American press...

...This was the reason earnestly presented to newspaper correspondents by the State department...

...Now the papers are engaged in an endeavor to convince the people that war is not so horrible a thing after all...

...B. Rosenthal teas formerly the Washington correspondent of the Milwaukee Journal...

...This was two weeks before Congress was to meet, and yet the Indianapolis yews said: "The point for us to remember is that we are at war • • - ." "It is evident we must have a war with Germany," said the Dcs Moines Capital...

...The Republican's position is not that of the rest of the press, however," said the 'Milwaukee Journal of March 23...

...On January 8, 1917, and again on January 15, at his weekly conferences with the Washington correspondents, the President solemnly warned them that the gravest consequences might follow from the speculation that was going on in the newspapers with reference to...

...But graver offenses than the suppression of the news have been committed by the newspapers against the public during the past two critical years...

...Said the Richmond Virginia^: "But the day of reckoning is not far distant...

...Of the newspapers' part he had this to say: "Then the press, the whole voice of the press shouting away on the war idea, making public opinion something which is not public opinion at all, but merely lack of vision in the newspapers...

...It was charged "widely that this was an attempt to gag the press, but that was not so...

...column one appear stories of the horrors of Belgium's fate...

...On March 27, Senator Hitchcock of Nebraska, who was second in rank among the Democrats on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, had a conference with the President with regard to the international situation...

...The Lews of the result of a primary election in Dayton h; always worth at least a few lines...

...In the Philadelphia Public Ledger of August 20, 1917, there appeared an article by Lincoln Colcord, a well known author and newspaper correspondent, telling of the reception of the I'ope's peace formula at Washington and detailing the various forces operating for and against it...

...and speaking with how much "preliminary consideration...

...the public had not spoken...

...The Salt Lake City Tribune said: "As a working principle the President's suggestion appears to be easily feasible until we besin to imagine Its application...

...But this election was particularly significant, for the issue which consciously or unconsciously presented itself a.s the main question of the campaign was the alti-lude of the voters toward the war...

...Said the New York Herald: "If that means anything it means that Mr...

...And here is something delightfully naive...

...On March 23 an Associated Press dispatch, printed widely through the country, said that aggressive steps for war had already been taken, and it was expected that Congress would declare war when it convened...

...his attitude toward the European situation...

...Because Germany is already waging war against the United States...

...Rosenthal was in Washington during the stirring days immediately preceding the declaration of war representing The Journal...

...Secretary of State Lansing had not spoken...

...Hardly had the public become acquainted with the fact that Pope Benedict had presented a peace note to the warring powers, including our own government, when the newspapers, with hardly an exception, began clamorously to assure the country that the note could not be accepted...

...On March 24 the State, War, and Navy departments published rules of censorship for the press, among these being the much-discussed Rule C. This rule read as follows: "It is requested that ni> information, reports, or rumors attributing a policy to the gove:nmcnt in any international situation, not authorized by the President or a member of the cabinet, be published without first consulting the department of state...

...It Is the home of important industries...

...Said the Richmond Virginian: "Neither Congress nor the President nor patriotic Americans iu general will pay one iota of attention to this movement...

...Although a newspaperman, Jlosenthal does not mince words in telling of the responsibility of American newspapers for conditions of to-day.—Editor's Xote...

...Said the -Ycie l'orfc Sun "He [Wilson] is not sworn to execute faithfully the office of president of Humanity...

...ON TUESDAY, August 14, 1917, at the primary election for members of the city commission of Dayton, Ohio, the Socialist candidates polled a vote overwhelmingly greater than that v hich the opposition tickets received...

...The dispatch continued: "The President has not yet written his address to Congress, although he has given it preliminary consideration...

...Dayton is a city of more than 125,000 people...

...There were good reasons for choosing instead the policy of armed neutrality -why abandon it because three more ships have been sunk...

...Any statement l y President Patterson of the National Cash Register Company is usually carried by the press associations to die newspapers of the country...

...Indeed not...

...for if the papers do not get the news they cannot be expected to print it...

...Wilson favors a peace" bearing the hallmark of 'Made in Prussia.' " After a number of American ships had been sunk in the war zone, and when, if ever, there was need for cool counsel, what advice did the press give the public...

...Perhaps that is why the press associations did j;ot carry the news of the Dayton election to the newspapers of the country...

...His secretary, Joseph P. Tumulty, supervises the preparation of them...

...What folly, what cowardice, to strive to lead us to believe that because it is we who are waging war that now the horrors will be mitigated and the anguish will be lessened...

...The fateful word must be uttered by Congress on April 2." One note of fair and reasonable and pacific counsel was uttered and that by the well known Spring, field Republican, which said: "What would be gained by declaring war...

...The Cleveland Plain Dealer wanted to know whose money was "staging this stupendous piece of folly...

...On March 30, the Associated Press announced that the President had then decided upon the "main features" of his message...

...Said the Minneapolis Journal, with amazing contradiction and effrontery: "It only remains for Congress, as the body charged by the constitution with that duty, to make formal recognition of the fact that war exists, akid to name the date on which it began...

...A state of war already exists" was a favorite phrase of the newspapers during that period—a piece of reckless assumption...

...It was a special dispatch...

...The press rssociations had not carried a li*e about the election...

...Yet in the face of this fact here was a press association undertaking to speak for the administration...

...He is therefore in a position to tell of the part the newspapers took in t:iosc exciting days...

...Never a word from the papers of the evils of war that seep like corrosive poisons through the ages—the horrors that visit their consequences upon generation after generation...

...It should be explained here that daily there are laid on the President's desk clippings from the principal newspapers of the country...

...That expression was seized upon by the war press and tortured into a statement that the President was "vacillating " When reports reached Washington of possible mediation by some European neutral between Germany and the United States, the Indianapolis Sews, the Chicago Evening Post, the Des Moines Capital, the Chicago Herald, and the St...

...No reader of the daily papers of that period can forget the statement in which the Associated Press expressed its indignation at the treatment its messages had received...

...On March 9, 1917, President Wilson called a special meeting of Congress for April 16, to consider our relations with Germany...

...They are pasted upon yellow sheets of paper, which are bound, and the "Yellow Book," as it is called, is an institution well known to newspapermen at the capital...

...Tiie press has betrayed the people...

...The following extract from the New York Tribune is merely typical: "Nothing is left for our government to do but to declare war and to make war in such a way that Germany will know that we are making it...

...in the circumstances pacifism in its aggressive manifestations has become a kind of moral treason against ths republic...

...How did the press receive the sentiments which lovers of democracy the world over have applauded...

...Newspaper correspondents at Washington will remember an occasion when Frank L. Polk, counselor of the state department, pointed out these dangers and urged caution upon the press...

...Apparently, there is censorship and censorship...

...The President had not spoken...

...Said the Indianapolis Times: "The merits, significance, the ultimate effects . . . spread out before us a field upon which angels might wisely fear to tread and fools rush in...

...When lie emerged from the President's office lie told newspaper correspondents that in his opinion the President's mind was "still open...

...When the Emergency Peace Federation was endeavoring to create a sentimeut for peace during the two or three days before Congress was to convene, its efforts were denounced by the war press...

...By AARON B. ROSENTHAL Aaron...

...it has betrayed the trust that the people imposed in it...

...Said the Philadelphia Record: "The United States must defend not only its own rights but law and civilization...

...The overwhelming support which the Socialist candidates obtained was indubitably a statement of the position of a majority of the active voters of a typical American city...

...Said the Sew York World: "What is called a peace propaganda is of necessity a pro-German propaganda...

...These deal with news accounts of the leading events, and editorial comment thereon...

...It represented the final effort of the administration to halt reckless speculation by the press...

...but in column three we are told that war isn't so dangerous after all...

...The blood of our Indian-fighting, forest-felling ancestry surges strongly in our veins...

...Louis Post-Dispatch were only a few that declared that the offer of mediation was a German decoy...

...The sinking of a number of American ships by German U-boats made it necessary to hasten the day of convening Congress...

...On March 21 the President called a special session for April 2. Instead of waiting for the President himself to speak, the press undertook to anticipate his attitude in a manner that cannot have helped but influence him...

...On March 18, press associations carried a story that it was announced "unofficially" that "a state of war already exists...

...They may be divided into two headings, reckless speculation, and hostility to peaceful settlement...

...The Minneapolis Tribune dismissed them as "ideal" and "a poet's dream...

...in column two are accounts of atrocities at sea...

...President Wilson himself found it necessary to bring the matter to the attention of the newspaper correspondents at Washington...

...Space forbids the setting forth extensively of extracts from newspapers to show- the general attitude of the papers during the critical first three months of 1917, but a few quotations, which could be vastly amplified, will demonstrate that this is true...

...Were Against Peace ON JANUARY 22, 1917, President Wilson deliv-ered his now famous "Peace without Victory" message to Congress...

...The place where the emergency peaceites should work is at Berlin...

...but the papers were prepared to create a sentiment which would make it impossible to accept the Pope's peace proposal...

...Even during the Mexican trouble, the administration took occasion to warn the newspapers that in speculating upon the news and attributing decisions and policies to responsible officials which were neither contemplated nor authorized, they were jeopardizing the peace of the United States...

...He has been a newspaperman for a number of years but has now taken tip the practice of laio in Milwaukee...

...Did the Associated Press remain silent over this...

...But recent events have given the newspapers significant opportunities to demonstrate that they are net, as a rule, serving the public honestly and fairly but are giving the public only that which they desire to give...

...These clippings have influence with the President...

...To say that the President had not been influenced by what had appeared in the press in the meantime is going very far...

...The papers did not contain a word of this until ti:e following Friday, when the news appeared in some of the Socialist publications...

...All of the foregoing may be said to have application not to newspapers but to the press associations...

...The press as much as any other single agency is responsible for our country's being plunged into the .European war...

...Cunningly devised statistics are cunningly used to prove that the casualties in battle arc not so bad as we have been led to believe...

...Now, it happened that during that high-handed procedure one of the superintendents of the Phelps-Dodge Company, a big corporation which is the principal owner of mines in the Bisbee district, clamped a censorship upon press dispatches for about a day...

...Less than a month before, a citizens' vigilance committee had driven more than 1,000 miners and their sympathizers from Bisbee, Arizona—a lawless ret over which the press of the country poorly concealed its satisfaction...

...After the sinking of the American steamer Heald-ton, in the so-called "safety area" of the North Sea, the papers demanded blood...

...Then on Sun-cay the Chicago Tribune had a first-page story on V.\e election...

...The Associated Press found that its news messages were held up in the Western Union office for several hours by order of the officious superintendent just mentioned...