Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 56, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 March 1917 — IS GOVERNMENT SO PATERNALISTIC AND INQUISITORIAL THAT FREEDOM IS A MOCKERY? [ARTICLE]

IS GOVERNMENT SO PATERNALISTIC AND INQUISITORIAL THAT FREEDOM IS A MOCKERY?

By W. F. WILEY.

Editor Gncinnati Enquirer 4

(By United Press Association.)

Columbus, O. — (Special) At the last annual 'meeting of the Associated Ohio Dailies, W- F. Wiley, the Cincinnati Enquirer, delivered an address that has become a classic tav editorial circles. 'L ----- Mr. Wiley startled his audienoe of editors when he proved to them that the vaunted freedom of the press is no more. Here are excerpts from Mr. Wiley’s address, which is considered one of the most fearless public utterances of the day: More swiftly and as surely as tHe glacier grinds its resistless way down mountain slopes, sweeping before it all life and growth and development, so there is sweeping down on the press of America the relentless, cold, a w UlaudMl) df~ governmental censorship. It Is inconceivable to my mind that Russianization of the American press will be permitted to go on unheeded and unchecked. And yet the end of the effort to throttle us is not in sight. To the local efforts of Alabama, West Virginia and other states to prevent the sale or circulation of newspapers containing advertisements of a certain character is added now the prqposal

of the congress of the United States to prevent the carrying by mail anywhere of newspapers containing such advertising matter. That proposal has already been endorsed by the senate, and if reports may be believed, it will receive also the approval of the house of representatives. 1 is pending, too, in the senate a resolution, declaring that United States district courts shall have no power to declare an aet of congress unconstitutional. I am not here to make a defense of the liquor traffic, nor plead for those newspapers and other periodicals that carry the advertising of this business. Personally, I have no interest in the business direct or indirect, nor have I ever defefided it. Speaking to yvu tonight as man to man, I may add, even, that I am personally opposed to some phases of it for many reasons, but I am more strongly opposed to the insidious es-. fort, of which this propped legislation is the opening wedge, uo repeal or to emasculate Article 1 of the amendments to the Constitution of the United States, which provides that there shall be no abridgement of the freedom of the press. * . It is an age old fight, my friends, this insistent effort to prevent the exercise of honest criticism of man and measures. It has its beginning in the dim, dark days when tyranny was rule, when kings could do no wrong and when he who temerariously raised his voice In complaint or criticism of those occupying the seats of the mighty paid for such indiscretion with his life. Gentlemen of the Associated Ohio Dailies, the battle is on. There Is even _now not alqne a governmental censorship of the press, but the first slimy tentacles of an inquisition have been thrust menacingly and with sinister purpose toward complete official domination and control of editorial utterance. Let us read a letter received by the editor of an Ohio newspaper with which most of you are familiar: Sir:—There has been submitted to this office a copy of an editorial entitled “Why Npt B.egula.te Everything?” -purporttng to five been published ln Jan. 4,T9t7, Issue of your publication, with the suggestion that It waa published for a valuable consideration and should, therefore, have been marked as an advertisement, in accordance with the provisions of -the act of Aug. M, 1912; a copy of which is Inclosed. This office would be pleased to have a statement from you In regard to the matter. ' . • ♦ Respectfully, A. M. DOCKERY, Third Asst. Postmaster General. The editorial referred to follows: Why Not Regulate Everything? Opposition of the board, of governors of Che Cincinnati Advertisers' club to the Randall advertising bill pending In congress Is timely and sensible. This measure. If enacted Into law. Is to withhold from the malls any publication or printed matter advertising intoxicating liquors for Enactment of this bill Into law will establish a precedent which quickly and easily may lead to governmental censorship of all printed matter. If It becomes unlawful to publish advertising relating to the sale of intoxloating liquors, it will be but a step to prohibit the advertising jf tobacco or underwear, of stockings, or of any other commodity in Which a larga pmion of the. pHbLiij-ia inteEested. " It~ would”almo«t appear that a law so drastic in ItsToperation • would be in contraventlon of the constitutional guarantees to the press. Not because the bill In question relates to advertising of alcohol, but for the broader reason that it Impinges upon personal rights, members r of congress shotild study the measure seriously before committing themselves to Its support. . You have before you indisputable •vidence that an inquisitional government is watching with lynx eyes every utterance in opposition to enactments of laws to throttle the press. Congress, led by fanatics, or under the domination of paid zealots, is going to enaet these laws, and it will go further. Having tasted the bloqd from one broken vein, it will cry for gore from the gushing artetfes of newspaper life. Who made that suggestion to the post office department? Does the government of the United States-employ paid Inspectors to scan editorial utter-

anoee of American newspapers, or has It tacit alliance with .the minions of sects and organizations, powerfully financed and skillfully officered, whose mission in lifem to legislate people into njorStity and goodness? It matters hot, my friends, whence emanates this insidious movement. It is enough to know that it really exists, that it is not a chimera or a myth. Such a letter is an insult to the intelligence and the integrity, of every publisher In America, and there is no redress for the studied affront. Quoting from one who has made a long study of this insidious advance upon the freedom of the press, let these statements have place in your rnipds: The tight t'or/censm ship, of the columns .of-the newspapers \vi4- not stop with attacks on liquor advertisements, or, indeed, with attempts to control advertisements. Several states , now prohibit the manufacture or sale of cigarettes, and it is •inevitable that legislation against newspapers carrying cigarette advertisements in such states will be urged. After th«j advertising department of every newspaper and magazine has been subjected to censorship, how can ’tiie flews columns remain free? What of horse racing reports; stock market quotations; Sunday baseball information —indeed, why not suppression of Sunday papers, and of Monday papers printed in whole or in

part on the Sabbath? But what of, editorial liberty? If it be decreed that the use of liquor and of cigarettes is hurtful alike to the. individual and to society, "is it not an act of hostility to the state and to the church for an editor to praise an old wine, or to refer indulgently--to the "makin’s 1 -- of a cigarette or to oppose in any way tire cause of prohibition? How long will it be, I wonder, before American people are Jarred. Into realization that soon they must look for dictation as to what they may eat or drink, as to what lines of business thejr may engage in, and as to how a newspaper may be edited, and what forms of advertising It may carry into the different states? And, gentlemen of the Associated Ohio Dailies, we are to blame. We have created are now turning to rend us limb,from limb. Drunk with power, riding a wpve of fanaticism in a sea of paternalism, the creatures of our own making seek our destruction. The vaunted power of the, press is no more. —The locks of Sampson have been shorn by the Delilahs, miscalled statesmen, and the press gprovels before offlcialdpm grateful tor a look, a kind word of, a less importunate kick than usual.

Intolerance of Officialdom. Two years ago, before thiß body, I painted a picture of the growth of governmental offieiousness whiefa was more prophetic -than I knew. Your attention was directed at that time to the increasing insolence and intolerance of officialdom and the predictioh was made that, unless checked and repressed with a stern hand, it would rise up to strike down its creators. It is in no spirit of arrogance or boastfulness that these fact§ are recalled, but in a spirit of sorrow and humiliation. Our sins of omission and commission are engulfing, us. Instead of rising like valiant fighting men, true to conscience, to honor, to the spirit of freedom and progress of civilization, to strike down our shackles, we sit like hoary dotards wrapped in the sackcloth and ashes of lament and rO- - How long, O Lord! How long shall this endure? Where are the forward looking men of today? Cartainlynot in the halls, of from, the Atlantic to the Pacific are feeble counterfeits merely of a foddering congress. Here In Ohio why can we not have constructive legislation on Ole ahbject of taxation ? The answer Is painfully simple: because we lack -constructive statesmen in the general assembly. Too great a percentage of the membership can not lift its ears 'from the ground to take good, square, honest look upon the sities of sections and taxing divisions remote from the bailiwicks to which they look for continued lease on offlcjal life. — ——— - , A Dartmouth professor is sponsor for a story that aptly portrays the situation in which we find .ourselves. A householder was dismayed one night by the sudden extinguishment of the electric lights in his house. In-a Httie while it became apparent that the darkness would prqbably continue through the night unless the break could be located and corrected. Unable at that hour to secure the services of an expert electriol&n the householder hit apon the happy scheme of detaching the batteries from hU doorbells and connecting them with tp s electric feed wires. But no light resulted. Next day the experts came to remedy the trouble, and seeing- the hapless expedient of the owner, remarked: >' . “Don’t you know that.it takes 500 times more power to produce light than lt ty.ke#. to produce noise?” There is the whole situation in a nutshell. We are troubled with lawvoltage statesmen, the tiny dry cells of whose brains are just powerful enough to make unceasing racket, while great dynamic minds that might flood the world with legislative light and wisdom- are disconnected from the machinery of government Two years lateir at this annual gathering, I ventured to scold and to a<L vise. Again I crave ypur indulgence to expostulate, to plead with- you te turn the bitteripA of wrath on alt near-statesmen, whose hands are the hands of Esau, but whose voice is the Jacob. Primarily the duty of securing good government sane administration, Just legislation, lies with as. We can on longer evade the lesue, cir shirk the responsibility if would remaifi free and not bond.