Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 January 1918 — Censorship Is Denounced As Both A Joke And A Tragedy [ARTICLE]

Censorship Is Denounced As Both A Joke And A Tragedy

Censorship of news from American forces in France is receiving considerable attention of late from correspondents abroad, who are denouncing it both as a joke and a tragedy. Heywood Brown, accedited to the American army from the Cleveland News, writes that Germany is getting exclusive news of American doings before the same news is permitted to come to light in America. “Take the case of the Rainbow division,” Brown declares. “This division was organized with quotas of the guard from many states in order to bring the war directly to a great many people in America. It was for propaganda as well as for military purposes, but as soon as it crossed the ocean it passed into a great silence under the rule, ’No mention shall be made of troop movements.’ After the division had been in France for a long period the censor allowed the announcement to go home that ‘certain units of the guard of almost all the states are now in France.’ _ “Of course, the German intelligence department knew that the Rainbow Division was in France, but if it was ignorant of that fact the message suggested by the censor gave it away. That it, is gave it away to the German intelligence officer who made a study of our military system and knew that “certain units of the guard of almost all states” must be the Rainbow Division. At the same time the average newspaper reader in America would be deceived by the camouflage. “The German papers get news of the American army long before it is freed for publication back home. And much of it remains exclusive. For instance, German newspapers printed again and again the fact that American troops were training in the Vosges, and French papers carried the names of some of the towns, but nothing was said to America, and nothing can be said yet.

"German papers printed the fact that American artillery was training near Besancon, .and one day a German airplane flew over the camp and dropped a message, saying: Hello, Americans! We know you’re there, but we arn’t going to bother you yet. There ain’t enough of you to make it worth while.’’ A week later an American censor cut out of an American correspondent’s story a reference to the fact that the artillery was training in hilly country. Even the news of our first encounter with the Germans came first from Germany.

"The potentialities of the present censorship system are much worse than any harm which it has already done. Our censorship is political, moral and literary. “A great deal is heard about expediency in the censor’s office. Thought is taken as to just what effect each dispatch will have back home. Due consideration is given to the possible proaction on Democrats, pacifists and Prohibitionists "There should be a censorship, of course, and in all seriousness I believe that this censorship should prevent the publication of the weekly communiques by Secretary Baker. A major general in the American army told me that he thought they had done incalculable harm. When the situation in Italy was desperate and the full smashing effect of the truth was needed Secretary Baker issued a communique calling attention to British gains and minimizing things in Italy, .said the general. ‘Now, when the truth is known and everybody is thick in gloom, along comes Secretary Baker with his prediction of a big German . offensive. There is fib reason for his saying anything at all, and less for his saying it at the wrong time.’ "Another serious aspect of the censorship is that it has been a censorship against pessimism. Nothing has been allowed to pass to criticism of things which were going badly. No check, however, has been put upon optimism, which is much more dangerous.

"A definite reaction has set in against America in France. It is not great yet, but it is almost certain to be great in the spring. The reason lies almost wholly in the fact that the newspapers at home and even the correspondents at the front have been allowed to talk too big. Levelheaded Frenchmen think that there are already half a million American soldiers in France and that there will be a million in the spring. In the spring they will find that this is not so, and they will be disappointed

and angry. “When a reporter reproached the press officer because he was not able to tell him until the last minute that the American troops were going into the trenches, he said proudly that it had been kept such a secret that the intelligence bureau itself did not know. i “Our chauffeur knew. “‘I knew it ten days ago. Why, everybody around here knew about it,’ he said. And further up the line I found that troops with gas masks and tin hats had gone through a village in motor trucks singing that they were going to “hang the damned old kaiser to a sour apple tree.”