PAM. 
 
 MISC. 
 
 Pamphlet No. 49 
 Series 1927-28 
 February, 1928 
 
 The Press 
 
 Its Responsibility In International Relations 
 
 DISCUSSED BY 
 
 Willis J. Abbot 
 Silas Bent 
 
 and 
 
 Moses Koenigsberg 
 
 A STENOGRAPHIC REPORT OF THE 
 
 103 rd New York Luncheon Discussion 
 January 21, 1928 
 of the 
 
 Foreign Policy Association 
 
 national headquarters 
 Eighteen East Forty-First Street 
 New York City 
 
Speakers 
 
 WILLIS J. ABBOT 
 
 Editor, Christian Science Monitor; recently returned from making a survey 
 of press conditions in Europe. 
 
 SILAS BENT 
 
 Author of Ballyhoo (1927) ; at various times associated with the New 
 York Times, The World, The New York Herald, the St. Louis 
 Dispatch, and other papers. 
 
 MOSES KOENIGSBERG 
 
 President, Newspaper Feature Service, International News Service, 
 Universal Service, and the King Feature Syndicate. 
 
 JAMES G. McDONALD, Chairman 
 
 SPEAKER S’ TABLE 
 
 Willis J. Abbot 
 Benjamin Adams 
 Silas Bent 
 
 James Wright Brown 
 Prof. Roscoe C. E. Brown 
 Percy S. Bullen 
 Chester Crowell 
 Arthur S. Draper 
 John P. Gavit 
 Stanley High 
 Moses Koenigsberg 
 Ivy L. Lee 
 
 Savel 
 
 Walter Lippmann 
 
 Dr. Arthur Livingston 
 
 Miss Katherine Ludington 
 
 Frederick Roy Martin 
 
 James G. McDonald 
 
 Wilson Midgley 
 
 Mrs. Whitney Shepardson 
 
 George G. Shor 
 
 Dr. Nicholas J. Spykman 
 
 Dr. Felix Valyi 
 
 Louis Wiley 
 
 Hendrick Willem Van Loon 
 Zimand 
 
The Press 
 
 Its Responsibility in International Relations 
 
 MR. JAMES G. McDONALD, Chairman 
 HE subject of the meeting today is “The Press: Its Responsibility 
 
 in International Relations.” We are particularly glad to present this 
 
 program to the audience here and to the radio audience because the 
 press is the one means we have of keeping in contact with the world. If 
 the sources of our news are free and clean, then we have the possibility 
 of being intelligently informed, but if the sources of our news are unclean 
 and contaminated, either by prejudice or passion or by anything else, 
 then it becomes an extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible task, for a 
 democracy to know what is going on in the world, or for that matter what 
 is going on in the seat of its own government. 
 
 The first speaker today, Mr. Abbot, is a man who, during the past 
 several months, has been making an intensive study of the press in its 
 international aspects. He has just recently returned from Europe. In 
 addition, he is one of our ablest newspaper men, the Chairman of the 
 Board of Editors of the Christian Science Monitor. Mr. Abbot is going 
 to make a preliminary statement in fifteen minutes of some of the problems 
 which the press faces from day to day in its task of presenting to its 
 readers the news of the world. Mr. Abbot ! 
 
 DIES and Gentlemen : For many years past I have been an edi- 
 
 torial writer. The task of an editorial writer is to dispose finally, 
 
 authoritatively, conclusively, in not more than three hundred to 
 five hundred words, of a subject concerning which the best statesmen 
 at Washington will consume page after page of the Congressional Record 
 in inconclusive discussion. That is rather a difficult job, but it is as 
 nothing compared to disposing in fifteen minutes of the problem of the 
 responsibility of the press in its relation to international affairs. The 
 limit of fifteen minutes would make the most hard-boiled of managing 
 editors express words of sympathy. 
 
 But there can be no question as to the responsibility of the press for 
 the maintenance of harmonious relations between nations. There never 
 is any question as to the power of the press in international affairs. If 
 a nation finds itself on the verge of war, or plunged into war, the first 
 act of the government is to weld the press into one single, coherent, 
 
 MR. WILLIS J. ABBOT 
 
 3 
 
actively-working whole for the purpose of creating every possible form 
 of hatred for the enemy. Every newspaper joins in the task, every canon 
 of journalism is violated in the effort to stimulate and to make effective 
 this international hatred. The war once ended, this action comes to an 
 end. The government naturally and properly withdraws its influence, 
 and the press recurs to its former condition of individual independence. 
 
 But it has manifested its power. It has made the people of one country 
 hate bitterly the people of another country and to describe them as Boches, 
 Huns, vandals, and worse. 
 
 Great power naturally implies responsibility. If the press has this 
 power, this demonstrated power, in war time, it seems to me that the press 
 should recognize its duty to avoid anything in the nature of publication 
 of international news which tends to create in time of peace hostile criti- 
 cism, antagonism, and even hatred for the people of countries with which 
 we are at war. 
 
 You may think that there is no danger in times of peace of antagonisms 
 being bred because of irresponsible journalism. I have had too many 
 illustrations come to my attention, without being sought out, of the utter 
 indifference of a great many newspapers, both in the United States and 
 abroad, to the character of news which they publish and its effect on the 
 public mind. 
 
 I could tell in detail of having heard a correspondent in Berlin say at 
 the time when the mark was at its very lowest, and when the people of all 
 Germany were in a condition which naturally would have inspired in right 
 minds every possible sympathy and desire to aid, that the proprietor of 
 his paper had recently gone home leaving him instructions not to discuss 
 the stabilization of the currency, the reestablishment of industry. “Get 
 away from those highbrow topics,” he said, “and send us a lot of scandal 
 about high life and the way in which the aristocratic people who have 
 been ruined by the depreciation of the mark are now finding a livelihood 
 through all sorts of disreputable and scandalous methods.” 
 
 When I was in England not so long ago, I found the English papers, 
 the London papers, commenting with a good deal of acerbity, and justifi- 
 ably so, upon a film which had been shown in the United States which 
 depicted the magnificent, earnest and effective efforts of the United States 
 Navy in running down and destroying the German cruiser Emden. The 
 film and its captions were set forth at a good deal of length in the London 
 papers with comments upon the way in which the Yankees were trying 
 to claim credit for the war because, of course, as we all know, the Emden 
 was destroyed long before the United States entered the war. That was 
 a stupid blunder on the part of some of the Hollywood manufacturers of 
 commercialized films. It was corrected very promptly by the Central 
 Moving Picture Bureau in New York, but the correction never got to 
 London. 
 
 Again, while I was in London, there came to all the English papers the 
 story which had been printed in full in a Washington paper of an Anglo- 
 Japanese alliance which, according to this Washington paper, had been 
 completed. There was not a word of truth in it. Our own State De- 
 
 4 
 
partment had to correct it. But the story had gone out with the seal 
 of a very responsible paper in Washington upon it, and it created an- 
 tagonism and dislike. 
 
 On the continent of Europe the news-gathering agencies are largely sub- 
 sidized by the governments. In France, for example, the Havas Agency 
 is a governmental agency; in Germany there is the Wolf Agency. I was 
 talking to one of the managers of the Havas Agency in France, and he de- 
 plored the way in which the Wolf Agency distorted all news which was sent 
 out, to the discredit of France. He said, “They are trying to keep up the 
 hostility of the German people toward France.” I went over to Germany 
 and I talked in the same way to a member of the staff of the foreign 
 office there and to a representative of the Wolf Agency, and he said, “Oh, 
 just wait. We will gather together some of the representative items sent 
 out by the Havas Agency and let you see what the French news agency 
 is doing to Germany.” In other words, each one was able to point the 
 finger of scorn at the other; the kettle called the pot black, and justifi- 
 ably so. 
 
 It is not easy to correct this situation. The fault does not lie altogether 
 with the correspondents. The fault does not lie altogether with the home 
 offices of the paper. The correspondent of course endeavors to gather 
 the character of news which he feels certain is going to strengthen him in 
 his home office, and it is an unfortunate fact that more interest will be 
 taken in a sensational dispatch predicting war or laying stress upon ele- 
 ments of political difference between different nations, than in really con- 
 structive, carefully written out political dispatches. The necessity of the 
 newspaper is to get mass circulation in order to satisfy its advertisers, and 
 it gives the sensational news always the right of way. Nevertheless, it 
 seems to me that there is in the press a growing recognition of the fact that 
 news of this character can be at least “soft-pedalled,” as the phrase goes. 
 
 At the recent conference of press experts at Geneva, they passed, by a 
 vote of twenty-seven to two, resolutions which they call, “Dealing with 
 the Publication or Distribution of Sententious News.” I will read just 
 one paragraph from it : 
 
 “This conference expresses the desire that newspapers and news agencies 
 of the world should deem it their duty to take stringent measures to avoid the 
 publication or distribution of such news or articles, and should also consider 
 the possibility of active international cooperation for the attainment of this 
 purpose which is in conformity with the spirit of the League of Nations.” 
 
 The character of news which they protested was obviously inaccurate, 
 highly-exaggerated or deliberately distorted news or articles. They might 
 have gone farther than that, I think. I do not believe that as a rule news- 
 papers do send deliberately distorted or violently exaggerated news, but it 
 is possible to send out news which may be true, which is true, and which 
 nevertheless should not be published; news which only brings into dis- 
 repute the country with which it deals. 
 
 I think all of us who have been abroad in recent years have been dis- 
 tressed by the character of the news that goes from the United States to 
 the average European newspaper. I remember talking with the proprietor 
 
 5 
 
of one of the greatest papers in London on this very subject only a few 
 weeks ago, and he said to me, “Well, you hold that no news of the country 
 in which the correspondent is should be published which brings its people 
 into disrepute with the people of the country in which it is published.” 
 
 I said, “In the main I do hold that.” 
 
 He said, “You have a fellow over in Chicago, a soft of a demagogue, 
 we think him over here, a blatherskite, one ‘Big Bill’ Thompson who is 
 constantly attacking the English government, the English people, and the 
 English king. Everything he says has a tendency to make our people 
 irritated, to provoke them. Do you say that I should not print anything 
 about ‘Big Bill’ Thompson in my paper?” 
 
 Of course no newspaper man could say that he should refrain from the 
 publication of that news, but I did say to him, “I wish you would have 
 your managing editor or someone in your office look back through the 
 files of your paper for the last three months and find how often anything 
 except stories about ‘Big Bill’ Thompson have come to you from Chicago,” 
 and he had to admit that there was practically nothing sent out from 
 Chicago except the stories about its eccentric Mayor. The people who 
 read his paper and the people who read the other London papers had no 
 knowledge of the fact that Chicago is a wonderful city, practically re- 
 building itself for aesthetic and artistic purposes, and that the great ma- 
 jority of its people are not interested in the question whether “Big Bill” 
 is going to punch King George’s snoot or not. It is a question of propor- 
 tion. If we get into the habit of constantly exaggerating and harping 
 upon these inharmonious things, we necessarily do build up a feeling of 
 inharmony, of antagonism and ultimate hostility between the nations. 
 
 The other day there came to my desk a little pamphlet containing a 
 speech by M. Henri Berenger, who was recently the French Ambassador 
 to the United States, in which he complains bitterly that the press of 
 Paris nowadays systematically refers to the United States, in type and in 
 cartoon, as “Uncle Shylock,” and he says that it is breaking down the his- 
 toric friendship between the French and the American people. I wonder 
 whether here on this side of the water we can claim to be entirely free 
 from a press which is apt to describe the French people as seeking to 
 evade their just responsibilities, as subordinating the payment of their 
 righteous debts to a desire for military glory and the aggrandizement of 
 their country. I think we will find that on both sides of the water the 
 error is committed of depicting the other people in terms which neces- 
 sarily inspire hostility on their part. 
 
 As I say, there are many things which enter into this problem of in- 
 ternational news correspondence which make it perplexing. The more 
 fully we can carry the news from one country to another, the more com- 
 prehensive the dispatches are, the more accurate they are, the better the 
 chance is of having a perfect comprehension of the mentality and the social 
 development of one country by the people of another. 
 
 But cable tolls come very high. They cost a great deal of money. It 
 might interest you to know that in the United States today there are only 
 seven newspapers that really maintain considerable foreign services, that 
 
 6 
 
is, actual bureaus abroad with correspondents in every capital. The rest 
 of the papers rely upon either the press agencies or the syndicated matter 
 sent out by these papers. A newspaper desiring to cover a matter oc- 
 curring in Shanghai has to pay thirty-five cents a word, in Tokyo thirty- 
 seven cents, in the Argentine (and you notice that the news from Havana 
 is that the delegates of the Argentine are very critical of American dom- 
 ination) fourteen cents. And so it goes, a very serious charge upon the 
 newspaper which attempts to cover the world freely and comprehensively. 
 
 Can this condition be corrected ? I hope that the condition growing out 
 of the costliness of cable service will in time be corrected somewhat by 
 the competition of wireless, somewhat by cooperation between the news- 
 papers. I believe also — and I know that it has been put into successful 
 operation by at least one newspaper — that this question of unfair, ir- 
 ritating and provocative news can be corrected by proper instructions sent 
 to the correspondents. If correspondents are instructed never to send 
 to the home office news relative to political or social movements in the 
 country to which they are accredited which has a tendency to bring the 
 government or the people of that country into disrepute or contempt by 
 the people of the country in which the paper is published, which has a 
 tendency to be irritating or provocative, it will go a long way toward cor- 
 recting this evil. Those men over there desire to stand well with their 
 home offices. Most of them are men of high standing. I think possibly 
 the standard of foreign correspondents might be raised to advantage. 
 It can be raised. The nature of news sent can be improved by efforts 
 from the home office, and I believe that the determination of the news- 
 paper press of this country to issue instructions of that character would 
 go a long way toward settling the problem as to the responsibility of the 
 newspapers of the world for the maintenance of harmonious relations be- 
 tween the nations. I thank you. 
 
 The Chairman: Mr. Abbot referred to the International Press Con- 
 ference in Geneva last September. One of the outstanding figures from 
 the United States at that conference was Mr. Koenigsberg, who is the 
 next speaker. 
 
 Mr. Koenigsberg started a — well, perhaps I should not call it a row, 
 but certainly a — very animated discussion, at that conference, by challeng- 
 ing boldly some of the commonly accepted principles of transmitting 
 news. I hope that Mr. Koenigsberg is no less bold and courageous in 
 his home town. 
 
 Mr. Koenigsberg is President of International News Service, News- 
 paper Feature Service, King Features Syndicate, and Universal Service. 
 Mr. Koenigsberg! 
 
 MR. MOSES KOENIGSBERG 
 
 M R. CHAIRMAN, Ladies and Gentlemen : I am sorry my benignant 
 friend, Mr. Abbot, does not like our newspapers. He has been 
 out of the newspaper business so long that I am afraid he has conceived 
 a sense of alienship for his former calling. I say this with full recogni- 
 tion of the Chairman’s introduction of Mr. Abbot. His suggestion that 
 
 7 
 
reporters and correspondents be instructed not to send the news, if car- 
 ried out, would destroy the cardinal purposes of journalism. A reporter 
 or correspondent would not discharge his duty, nor would he be a re- 
 porter or a correspondent if he exercised any judgment as to what news 
 he should not send. The editor determines what shall be printed. The 
 reporter and the correspondent report the facts. 
 
 The topic for today, “Responsibility of the Press in International Af- 
 fairs,” suggests the thought that responsibility of any sort in interna- 
 tional affairs is a large order. In fact, it is the largest order that one can 
 deliver for human fulfilment. However, its discharge involves little less 
 of difficulty than its definition. 
 
 The fixing of responsibility in any transaction is difficult. A humorous 
 incident, so pertinent that it thrusts itself upon my recollection, will il- 
 lustrate the point. 
 
 One of the widest known pugilists of the day was born of devout 
 Jewish parentage here in New York. His early appearances in the ring 
 were kept secret from his family. Finally his success had grown so great 
 that the secrecy could be no longer preserved and his manager went to 
 his father to arrange for the sanction of the family. The father recoiled 
 from the thought of having his son exhibit a disarranged physiognomy 
 with cauliflower ears and he did not think the calling was any good any- 
 how. But the manager was eloquent. He pointed out that there was a 
 great artistry, a great skill in this calling, and that some day the son 
 would be as well known as Jascha Heifetz or Mischa Elman. The re- 
 luctant father finally gave his consent and Benny Leonard went forward 
 to a career of great success. 
 
 Every time he fought he came home and found his father reading the 
 Torah. The parent would look up and say, “Did you win?” 
 
 Benny would say, “I licked him in a round,” or two rounds, as the 
 case might be. 
 
 But there came a night when Benny’s report was not so satisfactory. 
 The father closed the Torah. 
 
 “Well, did you win?” 
 
 “No.” 
 
 “What happened?” 
 
 “Why, it was a draw.” 
 
 “But your face — -it is terrible! Tell me how it happened.” 
 
 “Well, this Freddie Welsh is better than any of the men I ever fought 
 before. Every time I tried to hit him he was out somewhere else, and he 
 hit me oftener than all of the other fighters I have ever fought.” 
 
 The unhappy father pondered a moment and then in grave indignation 
 asked, “Well, where was Gibson — the manager?” 
 
 And in considering the responsibility of the press in international affairs 
 I feel a good deal like that disgruntled father as my mind inquires : Where 
 are you, the readers of the newspapers, without whom there could be no 
 press and for whom and to whom the responsibility of the press is para- 
 mount ? 
 
 8 
 
Responsibility presupposes the existence of a trust, duty or obligation. 
 In the case of the responsibility of the press in international affairs, to 
 whom is the press answerable? To whom is a newspaper responsible? 
 Until we determine this point we cannot measure the responsibility. 
 
 Can there be any question that the press must answer to the public and 
 that its responsibility begins and ends with that public? Next, what do 
 we mean by the public? Is a newspaper in Ohio responsible to the public 
 of Pennsylvania, or to the people of Europe or to a community in China? 
 I think not. I believe you will agree with me that the responsibility of 
 any newspaper begins and ends with the public which it serves. A re- 
 sponsibility that cannot be discharged is obviously a fatuity. 
 
 Is the responsibility of the newspaper in international affairs any less 
 than its responsibility in local affairs ? Indeed, might we not ask whether 
 the responsibility of a newspaper is not equally as great in any branch 
 or any department of public interest as it is in another? Since we must 
 fix the limits of responsibility as co-extensive with the limits of service, 
 does it not follow as a necessary corollary that the obligation of the press 
 is uniformly the same, no matter whether the subject involved be national, 
 international, or local? 
 
 We cannot indulge the thought that a newspaper could be recreant in 
 its trust in local affairs and still serve as a responsible factor in interna- 
 tional affairs. The loss of faith of readers on matters close at hand 
 would be followed by a loss of faith on remote subjects. 
 
 I believe it follows logically, therefore, that when we consider the re- 
 sponsibility of the press in international affairs we consider the responsi- 
 bility of the press in all of its aspects. That conclusion, however, would 
 not dispose of the subject before us. I assume that the Foreign Policy 
 Association in arranging this discussion sought an opportunity to learn 
 how the responsibility of the press in international affairs might be ex- 
 panded so as to assure a larger service to humanity through a shorter 
 and quicker path to international understanding. Such an outcome would 
 have the approval of every thinking man. 
 
 How shall we approach it? I will tell you. Not by attacking the press 
 for printing what you as individuals may not want printed or for failing 
 to print what you as individuals desire published. Denunciation as in- 
 dividuals will yield no result. 
 
 Newspapers select the materials that they print from a mass of matter, 
 and this selection comprehends only a fractional part of the reading matter 
 available for presentation. The task of the editor is to select. The task 
 of the reader is to elect the paper which makes selections that have his 
 approval. Thus we find that the editor selects, the reader elects, and upon 
 the outcome of this community election depends the success or failure 
 of the newspaper. 
 
 We find that the average newspaper on the Atlantic seaboard prints 
 a considerable amount of international news. The farther inland we go the 
 less foreign news appears in the newspapers printed and published there. 
 Why? Because the interests of the readers in the interior are not quick- 
 ened by international topics. Is the editor to ignore the obvious facts 
 
 9 
 
of reader election? Should he insist upon printing materials from which 
 his readers turn with indifference and thereby lose his readers? 
 
 Moveover, the only contribution the press can make to an international 
 understanding is that which its readers will accept. This acceptance can 
 be measured with two yardsticks : first, the number of readers, and sec- 
 ond, the degree of receptivity of those readers. The number of readers 
 is determined by the skill of the publisher in securing circulation, in offer- 
 ing to the public that character and quality of product that invites and 
 commands purchase. 
 
 The time is past when political programs attract large circulation. Par- 
 tisanship and polemics have disappeared as the sirens with which to en- 
 chant readers. In the old days, newspapers were made with an eye single 
 for male consumption. Today the successful publisher is constantly on 
 the alert for women readers. He can and does print the news, but so can 
 and does his competitor. The display and recital of this news offer fields 
 for exercise of art and skill, but these fields seldom afford the sole means 
 for achieving leadership. 
 
 The publisher who seeks volume of circulation includes in his paper 
 those elements which make for habits of reader attention and reader ex- 
 pectation, which encourage purchase of editions whether the news of the 
 day is dull or not. Thus has grown up in the current generation the im- 
 portant factor of newspaper features, elements of entertainment, amuse- 
 ment, instruction and social service. They attract and stabilize circula- 
 tion without which a newspaper could contribute nothing to international 
 or any other understanding. 
 
 Now, as to reader receptivity, from what source does it evolve, and of 
 what elements does it consist? The receptivity of a newspaper reader is 
 fixed by several elements, chief of which are cultural background, ethical 
 outlook, innate sympathy and a sense of social responsibility. Mix gen- 
 erous proportions of these with a bit of lively humor, and you have a 
 most receptive newspaper reader. The newspaper, however, cannot supply 
 these elements. It can only present the material with which to attract 
 and engage them. That it discharges this function efficiently is best at- 
 tested by the overwhelming tribute that sound business registers in the 
 advertising columns of the newspapers of America, and this attestation 
 is convincingly ratified by the eagerness with which every leader of thought 
 and every proponent of social progress seeks the columns of the press for 
 the propagation of his ideals. 
 
 If the press were to devote more space than is now allotted to the re- 
 cital of foreign affairs and the readers of American newspapers ignored 
 or failed to comprehend these stories, would we have approached or re- 
 ceded from a better international understanding? 
 
 Newspapers cannot continue without increasing circulation. A news- 
 paper cannot stand still because, with the advance of its competitors and 
 the increase of population, a static condition in journalism means a retro- 
 gression inevitably leading to failure. Hence newspapers will pay in- 
 creasing attention and devote constantly expanding energies to the pres- 
 entation of those elements of news and interest which their readers demand. 
 
 10 
 
It is obvious, therefore, that the contribution of the press to interna- 
 tional understanding will increase or diminish according to the inclination 
 of the readers to acquire that understanding. Newspapers do not print 
 the reports of ball games in order to stimulate interest in baseball. They 
 publish baseball stories in response to the obvious expression of interest 
 on the part of their readers in the national game. The importance of and 
 interest in news are not fixed by the fiat of the editor. They are wholly 
 determined by the reader. 
 
 Consider what would happen to the newspaper that insisted from day 
 to day on devoting most of its space to matter uninteresting to a majority 
 of its readers. Let us assume that such a newspaper devoted most of its 
 space to essays of statesmen, publicists and scholars upon the social, 
 economic, and political problems of foreign nations. Let us assume that 
 these articles were written by the ablest essayists of our day. How much 
 circulation would this paper retain in competition with any of the leading 
 newspapers in your community? 
 
 You will find that successful newspapers achieve their success by print- 
 ing in their columns the news of the day, and in their editorial columns 
 the sermons extracted from the texts supplied by that news. 
 
 President Coolidge, in an address to the Pan-American Congress in 
 Havana the other day, said, “In this great work of furthering inter-Ameri- 
 can understanding a large responsibility rests upon the press of all coun- 
 tries. In our present stage of civilization knowledge of foreign peoples 
 is almost wholly supplied from that source. By misinterpreting facts 
 or by carelessness in presenting them in their true light much damage can 
 be done. While great progress has been made toward the publication of 
 fuller information and unbiased views, a better exchange of news service 
 would do much to promote mutual knowledge and understanding. 
 
 “What happens in this hemisphere is of more vital interest to all of us 
 than what happens across any of the oceans.” 
 
 Now how is this exchange of news to be widened and broadened? The 
 President suggests increased facilities for communication. We should 
 consider two points in connection with this suggestion. 
 
 First, America sends out to all the world uncensored facts while the 
 American press receives from abroad a great mass of material that is 
 not news but which consists largely of censored messages or of statements 
 intended only for propaganda purposes. This outflow of real news in 
 exchange for an inflow of colored or partially suppressed news is not a 
 fair exchange. 
 
 Second, I heartily favor every possible expansion of the means of com- 
 munication between the countries of the world, but it is a fact that the 
 present facilities are ample to accommodate five times more news of for- 
 eign countries than is printed in any of them. The average metropolitan 
 newspaper discards more than seventy-five per cent of the foreign news 
 it receives. The average European newspaper prints practically no for- 
 eign news that has not been colored or treated to accord with the partisan 
 policies to which the paper is devoted. Thus we find that the advance- 
 ment of international understanding through press publication of intema- 
 
 11 
 
tional news has not reached a stage corresponding to the facilities which 
 are available. 
 
 Does this mean that the press has failed in its responsibility? Is it 
 true that a newspaper is obligated to print all the foreign news it re- 
 ceives? Does the obligation to print foreign news exceed the duty to 
 print domestic news or local information? It may be interesting in this 
 connection to note that the average metropolitan newspaper discards 
 vastly more domestic than foreign news. 
 
 If the Foreign Policy Association be eager to expand the responsibility 
 of the press in international affairs, I believe it should address itself to 
 the promotion of interest in international affairs on the part of the em- 
 ployers of the press, the great public, by which the press is inspired and 
 to whom the press dedicates its soul and its service. 
 
 How is that to be done? I think the answer is obvious. Promote in 
 your public schools that course of instruction which will give to the bud- 
 ding minds of the nation an interest in and a sympathy with world prob- 
 lems. 
 
 The success of such a laudable undertaking might be enhanced by an- 
 other course in the public schools — a system of instruction in newspaper 
 reading. Most of the advantages of the stupendous task of covering world 
 news, daily performed by the press, are lost or neglected by a majority 
 of readers. Not only is there a widespread inclination to confine news- 
 paper reading to the gratification of curiosity and the pursuit of enter- 
 tainment, but stories are read with such haste that not one out of ten 
 readers can determine in recollection of a specific point whether it was a 
 statement of fact or an expression of opinion. 
 
 Yet, despite all this waste, there is entering into civilization a mightier 
 force for the establishment of human understanding than could have 
 been mustered in all the centuries of hitherto recorded history. It is now 
 the privilege of the American newspaper reader to absorb in his lifetime 
 more authentic information of all kinds, a greater knowledge of world 
 affairs, and a larger mass of general learning than was known to the 
 entire human species a half-dozen generations ago. 
 
 If the press supplies this opportunity, does it not discharge in at least 
 a commendable degree its responsibility in international affairs ? The para- 
 mount responsibility of the press in all affairs is to supply the facts ac- 
 curately. I have been proud to be identified with a news service, the 
 slogan of which is, “Get it first, but first get it right.” That slogan is 
 confirmed by the rule that the reporter shall not tell what he thinks oc- 
 curred, but shall tell what actually occurred. 
 
 Another injunction laid upon the correspondents of that news service 
 is to identify the source of the news in the story itself. The same com- 
 mandment requires that if a statement be issued or an interview granted, 
 the words shall be quoted directly, so that the correspondent’s interpreta- 
 tion is not substituted for the text of the pronouncement. By the same 
 token, that correspondent would be discharged from service if he elected 
 to determine whether that statement, whether that interview should be 
 sent for any reason other than the newspaper principles that guide his 
 efforts. 
 
 12 
 
I believe that these rules, consistently pursued by news services and 
 newspapers, will discharge fully the responsibility of the press in interna- 
 tional affairs. I believe that the American press seeks to discharge its 
 obligations with a profound regard for the high privilege it enjoys. 
 I know of no agency in civilization endowed with equal opportunities 
 for public service. I know of no calling that inspires so great a zeal for 
 public service, and I know of no profession responsive to higher traditions. 
 
 The commandment in which is embraced all the practical and ethical 
 obligations of the press is borrowed from the Arthurian Knights of old, 
 “Thou shalt be everywhere and always the champion of the right and 
 the good against evil and injustice.” 
 
 I am reminded of some stories that have just reached me from Havana, 
 where there is an international conference in progress, of the perils and 
 hazards of misunderstanding among nationals of different countries. 
 These two stories I am about to tell you may be printed tomorrow, but 
 they will indicate that the individual may be misled even when he is 
 close at hand, much more than the correspondent who is a trained observer. 
 
 An American group in Havana the other day, attempting to fraternize 
 convivially with some Cubans, the conviviality being supplied by condi- 
 tions that are not prevalent in America at the moment, said, “How do you 
 like the independence that we gave you?” 
 
 There was no riot, and I doubt that those Americans knew that they 
 had so bitterly offended their Cuban friends; but the Cubans have a na- 
 tionalism of their own. They want their own heroes. They think that 
 Cuba was liberated by Cuba and by Cubans, and they do not want to have 
 borrowed American heroes to associate with the traditions of the liberation 
 of Cuba. 
 
 They say that we might have helped, and I think they are quite grateful 
 for our help, but it is rather bad taste for an American visiting Cuba to 
 tell how we liberated Cuba. It would be equally bad taste for a corres- 
 pondent to send a story that reflected upon the social customs, upon the 
 habits or upon the outward demeanor of the country in which he was a 
 resident. 
 
 I believe that my benignant friend, Mr. Abbot, will agree that most of the 
 men engaged in newspaper work abroad are gentlemen, and that they work 
 as gentlemen, and that they are not in the practice of sending stories cal- 
 culated to produce hostility or enmity. 
 
 Still another evidence of how difficult it is to overcome little differences 
 of taste among internationals. When President Coolidge was delivering 
 his speech in the National Theatre, the reporters were close at hand, 
 and as soon as he concluded his speech they made a break for the tele- 
 graph offices. One of them tried to step over a rope that was on the 
 platform. A Cuban policeman said, “Don’t do that! You are in a 
 civilized country ; you are not in America.” 
 
 It happens that the correspondent was a European. Still, it does be- 
 token the fact that the Cuban outlook is not quite the same as the Ameri- 
 can outlook, and that there are many delicate situations that even corres- 
 pondents with cosmopolitan training have difficulty in distinguishing at 
 
 13 
 
first, but if they discharge their duties as newspaper men, they certainly 
 will not contribute to international misunderstanding by sending stories 
 that a gentleman would not send. 
 
 The Chairman : The next and third speaker is Mr. Silas Bent, author 
 of Ballyhoo, and The Voice of the Press, and at various times associated 
 with the New York Times, The World, The New York Herald, the St. 
 Louis Dispatch, and other papers. Mr. Bent ! 
 
 MR. SILAS BENT 
 
 M R. McDONALD, Ladies and Gentlemen: The two speakers who 
 have preceded me have set before us pretty clearly, I think, a 
 dilemma which the press faces in our foreign relations. Mr. Abbot be- 
 lieves in the responsibility of the editor and the correspondent to select 
 such news as might best be printed for the preservation of international 
 amity. If I have mis-stated his view, I hope he will correct me. Mr. 
 Koenigsberg disavows any such responsibility, and would let events take 
 their course. Mr. Abbot would introduce a moral order into journalism. 
 Mr. Koenigsberg has a pagan freedom from any sense of moral responsi- 
 bility. And he would shift that responsibility to you, the reader. 
 
 What Mr. Koenigsberg wants is to permit the free play of the stereo- 
 types which govern the selection and display of news. Those stereotypes, 
 my friends, were fashioned back in the eighteen-thirties by the elder 
 James Gordon Bennett, and, so far as most of the newspapers in this 
 country are concerned, nothing fundamentally new has been discovered 
 about news in nearly a century. The paper with which Mr. Abbot is as- 
 sociated is conducting what seems to me an extraordinarily interesting 
 experiment in cutting new patterns for news. The stereotypes are based 
 on primitive appetites and emotions. They are based on mystery, sus- 
 pense, romance, the old folk tales of Cinderella and the Prince and Peas- 
 ant, on violence, illicit sex relations, and above all, conflict. The news 
 which is coming now out of Havana is based on the possibility of a ruction 
 about Nicaragua, not on what is happening from day to day. 
 
 The newspapers of Kansas City, which, so far as I know, are the only 
 ones as yet to report on the selling value of the Hickman story, (the story 
 of that unfortunate boy out on the Coast, a victim of mental and physical 
 disease, who abducted and mutilated a girl) — those newspapers report 
 that this is the best peace-time selling story they have had, better than 
 Lindbergh’s flight to Paris, better than the Dempsey-Tunney fight, better 
 than the Snyder-Gray murder story. 
 
 Mark this ! They differentiate between the peace-time selling value 
 of a story and the war-time selling value. War sells more papers than 
 any other news ; and this has got to be borne in mind when we think of the 
 responsibility of the press or its irresponsibility in foreign relations. The 
 economic tug is always for war. 
 
 Bismarck said that every country must pay in the long run for the 
 windows its press broke in other countries. That sounds, if you ex- 
 amine it now, merely as though the newspapers were prankishly irrespon- 
 
 14 
 
sible. Actually it goes deeper, because it goes to the fundamental pat- 
 terns of news. 
 
 I like to look at the press objectively. We have a situation in Nicar- 
 agua which is important in our foreign relations ; and I ask you to note, 
 first, that originally the men under Sandino were denominated in our 
 news columns — not the editorial pages alone, but in our news columns — - 
 as bandits. Then when we had four or five thousand marines there, it 
 became a little undignified to call them bandits, and the press began call- 
 ing them rebels. But either the word “bandits,” or the word “rebels” or 
 the word “patriots” is an expression of opinion. We have such expres- 
 sions of opinion always, not only in the news itself, but in the manner 
 of selecting and presenting news. 
 
 On January 9 our newspapers printed an Associated Press dispatch 
 from Nicaragua which said : “A rebel soldier beheading an American 
 
 marine is the design on General Augustino Sandino’s seal of the Republic 
 of Nicaragua. The seal, found on official documents issued by Sandino, 
 shows a Sandino soldier leaning over a fallen marine, grasping an up- 
 raised machete in his right hand, and the marine’s hair in his left hand.” 
 
 That, whether it is true or not, is good window smashing stuff. It 
 is the sort of stuff Mr. Abbot would keep out of the press; it is the sort 
 of stuff Mr. Koenigsberg thinks ought to go into the press ; and it reveals 
 the dilemma of responsibility which faces the press. 
 
 We have recently had an example of the operation of the press on our 
 foreign relations in the publication by twenty-six Hearst newspapers of a 
 series of “Mexican” documents. A Senate investigating committee has 
 found that the documents were forged. Even experts called in by Hearst, 
 belatedly, found that the documents had been forged, and the committee 
 so reported; but nothing whatsoever by way of reproof has been said 
 to Mr. Hearst. 
 
 Every member of that committee is within easy stone’s throw of one 
 or more Hearst papers. The chairman of the Committee, Senator David 
 Reed, has in his home town, Pittsburgh, fifty-fifty a Hearst press. Two 
 out of the four daily newspapers there are under the loving ministrations 
 of Mr. Koenigsberg and his associates. 
 
 Now, I hope that you were more shocked at the revelations regarding 
 the publication of spurious documents purporting to be Mexican state 
 documents than I was. I had seen that same piece of propaganda in op- 
 eration before, and I had seen it printed not merely in twenty-six news- 
 papers, but distributed to twelve hundred newspapers with an audience 
 of twenty-four million. 
 
 About a year and a half ago, Robert E. Olds, Secretary Kellogg’s for- 
 mer law partner and his subordinate in the Department of State, — Mr. Olds 
 has since been promoted — called to his office the representatives of the 
 three principal news agencies in Washington, — the Associated Press, the 
 United Press, and the International News, the last-named being the Hearst 
 agency; and he told them a story precisely similar in effect and (so far 
 as we know anything about motives) precisely similar in intent, about 
 Mexico. He said that Mexico was a hotbed of Bolshevist propaganda, 
 
 15 
 
that Mexico was trying to effect a Bolshevist hegemony of Central Amer- 
 ica. And the Hearst agency refused to print it. 
 
 The Associated Press representative and the United Press man said 
 to Mr. Olds, “We will print that if you will stand sponsor for it. You 
 can thus get it on every first page in this country, the first page of every 
 newspaper.” 
 
 Oh, no, that would be most unbecoming and undiplomatic ! Mr. Olds 
 could not possibly do that. They must put it out on their own authority. 
 
 The Associated Press did put it out, the other agencies did not; and 
 when the manager of the Washington bureau of the Associated Press was 
 taken to task about it, he said quite truthfully that this had come to him 
 in the usual course of news and that he had no reason to doubt its ac- 
 curacy. It did come to him in the usual course of news as it is put out 
 continually in Washington by screened and irresponsible officials. 
 
 Now in both those cases we have publications tending to imperil rela- 
 tions wfith a neighbor with whom we are always on delicate and, frequently, 
 on strained terms. In one case we had a chain of newspapers being made 
 the willing or unwilling dupe of forgers. In the other case we had twelve 
 hundred of our most pious and self-righteous newspapers being made the 
 dupes of an official propagandist. 
 
 My interest in the Mexican situation led to some inquiries which re- 
 vealed the fact that Joseph De Courcy, correspondent of the New York 
 Times in Mexico City, until he was expelled by the Mexican Government, 
 got a salary of $60 a week. I say that in no special derogation of the 
 Times, because I was informed that other correspondents in Mexico City 
 got no more. As a matter of routine, a formality, (for I had no reason 
 to doubt the accuracy and the credibility of my information) I asked the 
 acting managing editor of the New York Titties about this, and was told 
 that the salaries paid to correspondents were “private matters concerning 
 only ourselves and themselves.” In my opinion, wages, wherever paid 
 or to whomever paid, are a matter of public concern. And when wages 
 are being paid by a public utility like a newspaper, every action of which 
 is charged in the profoundest sense with public use, they become doubly 
 important. 
 
 The Senate investigation revealed that there was a market for forged 
 documents in Mexico City, and that correspondents, more than one of 
 them, supplemented their income by trading in these documents, or, so 
 far as we know, in manufacturing them. Is the responsibility of the press 
 a responsibility to pay a living wage to a Mexico City correspondent with 
 a family of five children? 
 
 I offer that to you as a question. We are having nowadays twice as 
 much foreign news as we had before the World War, and we are con- 
 tinually being told that news is a panacea for disharmony between na- 
 tions. The theory is that that prince of humorists, Charles Lamb, was 
 right when he said that he couldn’t know a man and hate him; and 
 therefore that a nation knowing another nation could not hate it. Well, 
 Charles Lamb may have been right and it may be that you can multiply 
 his statement on a subliminal scale. But he had in view a knowledge as 
 
 16 
 
man to man, not a third-hand knowledge through a press governed, ir- 
 revocably, it would appear, by news stereotypes which put a premium on 
 violence, hate and controversy. 
 
 Mr. Koenigsberg made quite clear to you, and Mr. Abbot will admit, 
 that the first responsibility of the press is to pay dividends. The first re- 
 sponsibility of this privately operated industry is to pay its way. Other- 
 wise it becomes venal. We live under a government by the consent of 
 the governed, and the manufacture of consent is in the private hands of 
 an industry conducted for revenue only. Revenue arises from the mass 
 sale of the paper, and the sale of the paper arises from appealing to the 
 fourteen-year-old mind. We do not have circulations of three and four 
 and five hundred thousand by printing papers which are edited for in- 
 telligent human beings. 
 
 The average mind in this country has been defined by psychologists as 
 a fourteen-year-old mind, and the psychologists tell us that this is a super- 
 stitious, credulous, conventional mind. We live in a civilization where 
 machines have contributed to a general monotony ; and the newspaper 
 undertakes to relieve that monotony by supplying us at two cents or three 
 cents with thrills and with what is now known as “escape” literature. 
 News of war and conflict is “escape” literature if we get it sitting here in 
 security or at our homes or even amid the insecurity of the subway rush. 
 News of the execution of a corset salesman’s paramour afforded an ex- 
 ample of good selling stuff; it is good whether domestic or foreign, 
 whether an electrocution or the threatened beheading of an American 
 marine by Sandino. 
 
 It so happened that on the night before Mrs. Snyder was to be exe- 
 cuted her lawyers obtained a stay of execution (an abortive stay) from 
 a New York Court. Almost at the same hour, a little after nine o’clock, 
 Thomas Hardy died. The Herald Tribune was the only morning news- 
 paper in this town which gave as much space to Thomas Hardy — it gave 
 more as a matter of fact — than to a prospective hour of grace for a felon 
 in Sing Sing. Its nearest competitor, the New York Times, thought Hardy 
 only half as important as Mrs. Snyder. This Snyder case was well enough 
 known to us. It had been running like a sewer through the newspapers 
 for ten months. 
 
 I do not want you to think that the owners and editors of daily news- 
 papers wear horns. They are honest and conscientious men according 
 to their lights, but they work under fiercely competitive conditions. This 
 explains why they gave greater display to the Snyder story than to Thomas 
 Hardy’s death. Suspense was aroused by the Snyder situation. Some- 
 one has said that suspense is the only literary tool which is effective on 
 tyrants and savages ; and since in this country we are assumed to have 
 no tyrants, it appears that the Snyder story was printed for its effect on 
 savages. 
 
 That, my friends, is the situation. I put it up to you with this question : 
 Shall we throw aside the freedom of the press, which has been regarded 
 as the inevitable and necessary adjunct to democratic processes? We see 
 very clearly that the press uses its freedom to debauch its readers, and not 
 to champion unpopular causes, nor to further social and international well- 
 
 17 
 
being. The question ahead of you is whether there shall be a deliberate 
 censorship. 
 
 The Chairman: I just spoke to Mr. Koenigsberg a moment ago, and 
 suggested to him that in view of the fact, though I may be mistaken, that 
 he and Mr. Bent do not see eye-to-eye one hundred per cent in reference 
 to the responsibility of the press, and, also, in view of the fact that, if Mr. 
 Abbot took one side or the other, he inclined toward Mr. Bent’s point of 
 view, that, if Mr. Koenigsberg would be good enough to reply to Mr. Bent 
 in about five minutes, we should welcome it before the question period. 
 
 Mr. Koenigsberg: I have labored under the impression for years 
 
 that morals are determined by geography and time. Today, they seem 
 to be largely affected by personality. I accept Mr. Bent’s challenge that 
 I represent a pagan point of view, and answer that, if his appraisal of the 
 responsibility of newspapers is to be fixed by his ethical standards, I yield 
 them to him one hundred per cent. 
 
 I cannot find anything moral or ethical in the assumption or the arroga- 
 tion of the right to think for others. However, we have come to such 
 a sharp conflict on ethical standards that I perhaps can illustrate my feel- 
 ing about Mr. Bent’s views with a story that I hope too many of you have 
 not heard. 
 
 A New York merchant, eager to assist in the education of his son, 
 asked the young hopeful to bring to him any question about which he had 
 any doubt. One day the boy said, “Father, what does ‘ethics’ mean?” 
 
 “I will tell you, son,” he said. “Suppose there comes into my store to- 
 morrow a customer who buys a bill of goods amounting to $20, and I at- 
 tend to him personally, and he gives me the money. I walk back to the 
 cashier’s desk, and on the way I discover that, instead of a $20 bill, he has 
 given me two $20 bills. Now, my son, there comes a question in ethics: 
 Should I tell my partner or not?” 
 
 I should like again to submit to this jury, present and on the air, whether 
 there is any immorality in a profession that moves responsive at all times 
 to the commandment I quoted a few moments ago, “Thou shalt be every- 
 where and always the champion of the right and the good against evil 
 and injustice.” 
 
 Who is to determine the evil and the injustice, or the good and the 
 right of any view which Mr. Bent or any of his associates may have on 
 any social or political program? Are they alone to determine that right, 
 and are all things opposed to that program immoral ? Or are those people 
 who attempt to put their programs upon others immoral and unethical? 
 
 I do not claim for the press anything except a duty which it must dis- 
 charge, and when it is recreant to that duty, I think it is an immoral pro- 
 fession. 
 
 I challenge Mr. Bent’s accuracy not only in statements of fact but in 
 conclusions. Mr. Bent assured you that the salary of Mr. De Courcy in 
 Mexico was $60 a week. I think he wants to be fair as far as his lights 
 go, but I do not think that he should have said to you that the man’s 
 
 18 
 
salary was $60 a week without inquiring whether he had other sources 
 of income. I happen to know that Mr. De Courcy was an American 
 resident in Mexico City, on part pay from the New York Times, de- 
 riving an income from other sources, and I also happen to know from 
 personal knowledge, not from hearsay, that Mr. Bent was wholly mis- 
 taken when he said that no other Mexico City correspondent got any 
 more, because I personally have approved the payroll checks for others 
 who received twice as much as that so-called salary of $60 a week. 
 
 I do not believe that any man who is familiar with the newspaper busi- 
 ness, and I want you to bear in mind that description — any man who is 
 familiar with the newspaper business — will fail to tell you that the rewards 
 for newspaper effort are higher than any other calling to which a man 
 may enter with so little preparation or with so much preparation, as the 
 case may be. The immediate returns are higher and the average payments 
 are higher for individual effort. 
 
 One other thing that I should like to answer in conclusion ! Gentlemen 
 who share Mr. Bent’s ethical outlook and moral standards are much 
 chagrined that newspapers should pay so much attention to the execution 
 of Ruth Snyder. I think the history of our social development indicates 
 clearly that crime was never so rampant and never so prosperous as when 
 there was no publicity attendant upon the transactions of the criminals. 
 
 (Audience expressed disapproval.) 
 
 I am glad to have your dissent, because apparently all of you have 
 lived longer than I have. 
 
 I still reserve for myself belief in the things that are reported by the 
 people who did live when I did not live. I would say, however, that Mr. 
 Bent may have overlooked a great interest attending one of the dramatic 
 phases of the execution of Ruth Snyder. He may have overlooked the 
 fact that the conversion of a sinner to God is a very important news item. 
 
 The Chairman: I have asked Mr. Abbot if he will not reply, also, to 
 Mr. Bent or to Mr. Koenigsberg in five minutes. That will leave us twenty 
 minutes for questions and answers before the closing time. 
 
 Mr. Abbot : I have not the slightest expectation that I can convert Mr. 
 Koenigsberg in the five minutes that I have to talk. I notice the unction 
 with which he described my retirement from journalism and I plead guilty 
 to having been retired for eight or ten years from the type of journalism 
 which he so worthily represents, a type which I quite well understood in 
 the earlier period. 
 
 I would like also to call attention to a recent illustration of that type 
 of journalism for which I think my friend, Mr. Koenigsberg, — for we 
 have been friends for many years — is not wholly without some individual 
 responsibility. I have been pleading here for a sense of proportion in 
 news, namely, that the stress should not be laid in international corres- 
 pondence upon those things which prove to be irritating or provocative. 
 I think a sense of proportion is vital, is essential, to proper editing of a 
 newspaper or of a news report. Mr. Koenigsberg and I discussed this 
 
 19 
 
question amicably before an audience something like this in Boston, two 
 or perhaps three weeks ago, and some reports were sent out through the 
 press. Judging from the news clippings that came into my office, the 
 reports that went out from Mr. Koenigsberg’s justly celebrated news 
 agencies were more full, more comprehensive than those sent out by either 
 the United or Associated Press. I received one or two clippings which 
 were about that long, we will say, (indicating two and one-half feet) 
 and they set forth Mr. Koenigsberg’s remarks on the present morality 
 of newspapers at about that length. They gave Mr. Bruce Bliven about 
 that much (indicating about six inches) ; they gave Mr. Abbot of the 
 Christian Science Monitor an amount which I cannot get my fingers near 
 enough to show you. 
 
 They further went on to say that Mr. Abbot of the Christian Science 
 Monitor said, and this was all they credited me with saying, that the for- 
 eign correspondents of the American newspapers were not suitably 
 equipped to fulfill their duties, which was not at all what I said then nor 
 what I say now. 
 
 I think you know what I have been trying to say. But in summing what 
 I have said, I want to make this assertion : That the recent conference for 
 the limitation of naval armament in Geneva was so handled by the press 
 of the United States that very, very few of our people over here under- 
 stand the rightfulness, the proportion of rightfulness, of the English po- 
 sition in that conference; and, in the same way, it was so handled by the 
 English press that very few English readers of newspapers understand 
 the value and virtue and truth in the American contention. The people 
 of both countries were misled. I do not know whether it was systemati- 
 cally done, or whether it was because the correspondents got into the 
 hands of propagandists, but the people of both countries were so thor- 
 oughly misled that in neither country today is there any widespread un- 
 derstanding of the value or the merit of the position assumed by the other 
 country. We all know that as a result of this conference, as a result of 
 the lamentable failure of this conference, there exists today a feeling of 
 distrust, of uncertainty and of nascent hostility between the two peoples 
 that is a menace which properly deserves the attention of the right-thinking 
 people of both nations. 
 
 That was one of the great illustrations, one of the most notable illustra- 
 tions in a big way, of the dangers that may result from ill-considered in- 
 ternational correspondence and from lack of a sense of responsibility for 
 the character of news transmitted. But I do wish to lay emphasis again 
 upon my contention that it is not these great things, — not the accuracy or 
 the spirit in which a disarmament conference, a Pan-American conference 
 or a treaty conference, not wholly the spirit in which they are reported, — 
 but the steady attitude, week after week, day after day, year after year, 
 of the correspondents in one nation in sending out all sorts of material 
 which is discreditable to, and which creates antagonism and hostility to 
 the people of the nation to which they are accredited. That is the thing 
 which should be corrected in our press and can be readily and easily cor- 
 rected, and it is no more an indictment to be laid at the door of the Ameri- 
 
 20 
 
can correspondents than it is at the door of the English and such few Con- 
 tinental papers as maintain correspondents in the United States. 
 
 I thank you ! 
 
 The Chairman: Now we have eighteen or twenty minutes left for 
 
 questions and discussion. I have one or two written questions, but I 
 would rather have some spoken questions, if the speakers will remember 
 that, because of the broadcasting arrangements, the questions must be re- 
 peated, and, therefore, must be brief. 
 
 Mr. Jones : I want to ask Mr. Koenigsberg a question. He said, I 
 
 think, that seventy-five per cent of the international news was not pub- 
 lished. On what basis is the selection made of the twenty-five per cent 
 of the news that is published. 
 
 Mr. Koenigsberg : On that standard of news value which at all times 
 guides newspaper editors. All news is relative in value. A great story 
 which might be worth a page at ten o’clock in the morning may be worth 
 only half a column at six o’clock at night. Therefore, the standards of 
 news value embrace a series of formulae that it would be absolutely im- 
 possible to explain to a layman at this meeting. 
 
 Mr. C. Crowell : I want to address a question concerning a practi- 
 
 cal problem in the handling and distributing of foreign news in its rela- 
 tion to the responsibility that we are discussing here today. Mr. Koenigs- 
 berg made the point, and it is a very accurate and very good one, that we 
 exchange our news without censorship for a very large amount of cen- 
 sored foreign news. The extent of censorship in Europe and almost any 
 part of the world in time of peace is astounding, and the average reader 
 is not continuously informed as to where these censorships are or are 
 not. They come on and they go off, mysteriously, not because of war 
 but because of some internal problem. Now it was my thought that when- 
 ever an American newspaper or news service prints a dispatch from a 
 country that maintains a censorship, that that statement should be made at 
 the head of the dispatch, and that it might even be fair to go to the extent 
 of explaining, at some point near the editorial column, the nature of these 
 various censorships. I believe that it is of extreme importance, on account 
 of the growing strength of this country in world affairs, that our people 
 should be continuously advised on the purity of the sources of their foreign 
 news. 
 
 I make this as a statement. I wish the Chairman to translate it in terms 
 of a question, and ask one of the speakers if he would not like to com- 
 ment on the justice of having every censored dispatch handled by a news- 
 paper or news service in this country so labeled. Personally, I would label 
 each “Damaged Goods.” 
 
 The Chairman: We have at the guest table Mr. Frederick Roy 
 
 Martin, formerly the manager of the Associated Press. Mr. Martin, what 
 would you say in answer to Mr. Crowell’s question ? 
 
 Mr. Frederick Roy Martin : First, let me say that I have not the 
 
 slightest responsibility in this subject. 
 
 21 
 
The Chairman: I admit that. 
 
 Mr. Martin : Nor have I for two years or more. It is delightful to 
 be today with John Gavit and Hendrick Van Loon, who used to have 
 some, and hear this debate. I can simply answer that I have in previous 
 years, particularly during the World War, struggled with countries where 
 there were censorships and I have sometimes taken out correspondents and 
 I have sometimes permitted them to remain. The suggestion that Mr. 
 Crowell made is perfectly impracticable. You would have no corres- 
 pondent in Italy or in Russia if you labeled your dispatches as he sug- 
 gests. In those conditions you can simply choose whether you prefer to 
 have a correspondent with a censor or not. 
 
 The Chairman : Does someone else at the guest table have a different 
 view as to the practicability of Mr. Crowell’s suggestion about labeling as 
 such news which is more or less censored? Mr. Bent, have you a different 
 view from Mr. Martin’s? 
 
 Mr. Silas Bent: I do not think it necessarily true that all the govern- 
 ments which censor news — and all of the Continental governments do it, 
 I believe, to some extent — would expel correspondents. I am told that 
 Russia exercises a very slight censorship over outgoing news now, in spite 
 of the very severe censorship within Russia. The illustration which 
 comes to my mind concerns a correspondent who sent a story containing 
 the phrase “red terror,” and the censor called him up and asked him if 
 he would mind letting him put that phrase into quotation marks. I doubt 
 whether Mussolini would expel our correspondents. I think he has 
 better sense. But you have this difficulty, my friends, that many dis- 
 patches now come through not only without censorship, but without actual 
 delay or mutilation. The receiving newspaper does not know, it has no 
 way of knowing, whether a dispatch has been tampered with, and so you 
 throw all dispatches under the same stigma which, after all, does not ac- 
 complish a great deal. 
 
 Question: I should like to ask Mr. Bent, apropos of the matter of 
 
 censorship, if he does not think that would be more dangerous than the 
 value we might gain from it? 
 
 The Chairman: The question is addressed to Mr. Bent. May I ask 
 the Questioner, however, if he means in reference to the last point Mr. 
 Bent made ? 
 
 Questioner : No. 
 
 Mr. Bent: Censorship is repugnant to all of us. All of us know, 
 
 either instinctively or by a process of reason, that censorships threaten 
 tyranny. The question is whether the sort of tyranny that is threatened 
 is worse than the tyranny we have. I am very much inclined to think we 
 are worse off on account of the wider-spread publicity regarding foreign 
 affairs. We do not know about it. It is amazing how little we know about 
 our newspapers. One of our rich and idle foundations might well devote 
 
 22 
 
some of its money and its time to a study of this institution, certainly as 
 powerful and as important as either the Church or the State, both of which 
 are under constant and searching scrutiny. Unless we have such a sur- 
 vey, an experiment at censorship seems to be a way out. 
 
 The Chairman: Mr. Felix Valyi, founder and editor-in-chief of the 
 Review of Nations, has asked permission to ask a question, and I said I 
 would be glad if he did so within one minute as measured by my watch. 
 
 Mr. Valyi: May I ask Mr. McDonald to sum up the discussion and 
 to define the real interest in foreign relations from the point of view of 
 American mentality? 
 
 The Chairman: You may not ask the Chairman to do anything. 
 
 Mr. Valyi: Is it the murder of a king, or a ruling statesman, or is it 
 the destiny of a nation, the destiny of mankind which concerns America? 
 We outside of America, we Europeans — and I may add, we Asiatics — 
 do not understand how it is possible that a murderer gets two or three 
 columns while a great scientific invention, or a great scholar, gets just a 
 few words. A murderer of a nation, Miss Katherine Mayo, gets thousands 
 of words, while Sir Charles Eliot, Ex-Ambassador of England in Japan, 
 the author of the best English book on Hinduism and Buddhism, is almost 
 unknown in America. 
 
 The Chairman : The questioner did not say so, but I suspect that was 
 a rhetorical question. Does anyone wish to answer it? 
 
 We have five minutes still. 
 
 Mr. Fleischer : I presume we may take for granted that in the present 
 state of evolution of the newspaper business it is still a private enterprise 
 and that each newspaper proprietor, as Mr. Bent indicated, wants to pay 
 himself and his corporation dividends. I presume we may also take for 
 granted that these newspaper owners do not aim at capturing all of public 
 opinion; that each one of them hopes to appeal to only a type of public 
 opinion, to one element of the public. I should like to ask Mr. Koenigs- 
 berg or Mr. Abbot whether, in the selection of news which each of them 
 suggested occurs, — despite the fact that one claims to be moralistic and the 
 other admits that he is pagan — they are not really guided by an appeal to 
 that definite element of public opinion which is going to be the means of 
 making their newspaper enterprise pay? 
 
 Mr. Koenigsberg : I thought I had made very clear that a newspaper 
 tries to serve its public, and if it tries to serve its public, I do not under- 
 stand by what standards it could attempt to serve only part of its public. 
 No newspaper can be influential or powerful unless it is successful. I 
 gather here today that some gentlemen believe that a newspaper could be 
 powerful, and yet not have any circulation or be successful. Really I am 
 in a maze; I do not understand the newspaper business any more if the 
 views that are so roundly applauded today are to prevail. I believe that 
 a newspaper seeks to do its task honestly and to do its task honestly it 
 must serve its entire public, as much of the public as it can prevail upon to 
 
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read the newspaper. I would not understand how to go about selecting 
 news for a part of the public. Maybe Mr. Bent would. 
 
 The Chairman : Mr. Abbot is asked the same question. 
 
 Mr. Abbot : I would answer the gentleman by saying, “Mainly, yes.” 
 I am perfectly willing to leave to Mr. Koenigsberg the greater part of the 
 public to which he appeals. I am perfectly willing to confess that the 
 Christian Science Monitor endeavors to appeal to an intelligent, a pro- 
 gressive, a patriotic, a law-abiding and home-keeping public. I am also 
 perfectly certain that it is so edited that we are continually extending that 
 public by a process of education. I think that at points we even lop over 
 into some of Mr. Koenigsberg’s preserves and take some of his people 
 away from him. But more than that, I wish to answer his statement, his 
 satirical reference to the influence of papers with no circulation. Possibly 
 he has heard of the Springfield Republican. Years ago that paper, pub- 
 lished in a little provincial town in New England, exerted more influence 
 than possibly any New York paper of its time. I think we will admit that 
 the New York Evening 'Post, at a time when its circulation was not as 
 great as it is now and when it did not compare with the yellows of today, 
 exerted an enormous influence. Circulation has its value as a point of 
 influence, unquestionably, but the sincerity and honesty of purpose and 
 the intelligence of presentation and comment on the news will ultimately 
 give a newspaper a world-wide influence even though its circulation may 
 not be the mass circulation obtained by sensational reporting of crimes 
 and prize fights and news matters of that character. 
 
 Question : Mr. Bent has stated that the Assistant Secretary of State, 
 Mr. Olds, in speaking to three members of the press, issued to them what 
 he considered was propaganda. I should like to ask him if he has any 
 notion what prompted that piece of propaganda, and if most of the news- 
 paper expressions of foreign relationships are not prompted by propa- 
 ganda? Is not that the basic question, and are we not indulging in a 
 dialectic discussion? 
 
 Mr. Bent : Of course that was propaganda. I think I called it propa- 
 ganda when I spoke of it. As to the motives behind it, — I am not in the 
 confidence of the Department of State, but I will say to you that this 
 propaganda, (or statement of fact, if it was that), was given out before 
 the Mexican Supreme Court declared invalid a clause of the 1927 Con- 
 stitution, which this country and our State Department regard as con- 
 fiscatory of American rights. That was a clause which our oil and mine 
 concessionaires very bitterly resented, Hearst among them. The Mexican 
 Supreme Court, after Mr. Olds gave out that statement, declared that 
 the clause was invalid. 
 
 It is not true, as I understand the word “propaganda,” that all news is 
 propaganda. It seems to me that propaganda is an attempt to convert some- 
 one else to your opinion or, through suggestion, to alter another’s opinion 
 favorably to a special interest. News need not be propaganda. 
 
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