Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 302, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1919 — “PITILESS PUBLICITY” AGAIN. [ARTICLE]

“PITILESS PUBLICITY” AGAIN.

It will be recalled that in the campaign preceding his first term as president, Mr. Woodrow Wilson declared in favor of an administration policy of “pitiless publicity.” The public had reason, in view of this positive declaration, to expect that government business would be transacted in such a way that all the people might know what was being done and why it was done. It was naturally assumed that he would take the public into his confidence. As every one knows, nothing of the kind happened. On the contrary, no administration in the history of the country has been as secretive as Mr. Wilson’s. The public has been permitted to know and understand only those proceedings and purposes of the government that could not possibly be concealed from it. The utmost mystery '’was from the very beginning thrown about our policy toward Mexico, and our diplomatic transactions with that country. No one outside oi the inner govemmbnt circles knew at the time, or has ever known from official quarters what our relations and understandings with the ruling powers of Mexico have been. Nothing definite is to be guessed at now in regard to the policy to be pursued in the existing controversy with Carranza.

Needless secrecy in regard to our part in the European war was enforced, not only through censorship but through department orders, and was continued long after the enemy was powerless. The country had little information as I to what the peace conference was doing or proposed to do. It expected a peace treaty; it did not expect a league of nations until the treaty had been signed and sealed. Secrecy has been the rule in matters great and small in the government for six years and the attitude of certain departments toward the public has been that of the late Mr. Vander--1 bilt. Only the other day, Secretary i Wilson of the department of labor i refused to give a congressional com- ' mittee the result of its investigation into Ellis Island scandals relaj tive to convicted anarchists bn the ground that publicity in the case was not desirable. This country has in a way grown ' accustomed to the mystery cast by ■ the administration about its own transactions, but now comes an article from President Wilson’s peri in the New York Independent in which he amplifies his former assertion as to the importance of publicity. In the course of this article he says: “Autocratic governments of the past have lived by concealment; free governments must live by understanding. In the new day that is dawning only these governments that have no secrets from their peoples can long endure. I do not say that such a government will make no mistakes, but I do say mistakes will be fewer and more easily corrected when all governments are guided by well-informed public opinion. * ♦ ♦ We can know if change is desirable only by knowing all the facts about the thing we wish to alter. The journals that give the facts about government, its policies and activities, set down by the men principally responsible for them, will perform a public service. They will afford a medium through which the government can report continuously to the people.” • The mystery seems to thicken, for notwithstanding this new pronouncement by the head of the administration and his seeming desire for the public to know “all,” there is no indication of any change of policy in actual operation. There is no sign that the government is

preparing to “report to the people.” It is a case in which theory does not agree with fact and in which some doubt exists as to whether two and two make four.—lndianapolis Star.