The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1910-06-16
INFLUEkCE CT
DAILY READING
History Often Shaped By Ease
Impressions Made.
PERSONAL BUREAU IN OHIO


Reading Public Of the state-ls
Not Popular Idol Through Strong
Personality.
This power of control over a reo-
pies daily reading, which may justly
be regarded as the create st power in
the world, has several times been eX.
erted in a way that has profoundly
affected history.
mention here two examples,
merely to show how irresistible it is.
They occurred in international af.
fairs, but similar instances are easily
cited from our domestic concerns.
At the time of the Boer war all the
information furnished to the world
about that struggle came through
London, and was so adroitly and per-
sistently colored that the people Of
America never knew what the row
was about. 1t was always described
as an issue over the right of fran.
chise. AS a matter of fact that war
was instigated by mine owners of the
Rand for the purpose of getting
cheap labor and by British imperial.
lists ambition to grab off additional
territory. By means of elaborately
tainted news the sympathy of
America, which would naturally have
been on the side of the Beers,
was so perverted that we saw our
government lending it's countenance
and even its practical cooperation to
the British without a protest.
We had no way to learn the truth.
"Britain Our Friend"
Another striking illustration is the
universal belief created in this coun-
try in 1898 that Great Britain had
stepped between us and a threatened.
hostile coalition by the nations of
continental Europe at the outbreak
of the Spanish-American war. This
fantastic invention having been as
siduously repeated a million times or
thereabouts seized such firm hold on
the popular Imagination that even the
most complete official refutation has
been unable to eradicate the belief
that Great Britain was our friend"
in 1898. The facts, of course, as pa
tiently set forth by the German am
bassador in January, 1902, and con-
firmed by the foreign Offices, are ex-
actly the reverse. but have never
made the least impression. The false
hood has been responsible for very
remarkable results In our social and
political life, and seems destined to
bear fruit perennially.
We may therefore conclude the fact
to be that not only can false news
utterly mislead an entire nation, but
the effects of It may be indestruct-
ible.-The Press and the Public, by
Charles Edward Russell.
An Ohio Case In Point.
When Governor Harmon was nomi.
mated by the Democrats in 1908 he
was acting as receiver for the Nor
gan railroad properties, and yet that
fact was not brought to the mind OF
one-tenth of one per cent of the Ohio
voters during the campaign that fol-
lowed.
There were two reasons, probably,
why this was not injected into the
1908 campaign as an issue. In the
first place Judge Harmon's opponent
ignored It; and further, the state
campaign was oyershadowed by the
national contest for the presidency,
and aside from the dominant state
issue the campaign was waged along
national lines.
Judge Harmon himself made his
campaign on the old Jacksonian issue
of turn the rascals out" He prom
ised to reveal the reeking graft, and
TO fll the penitentiary with the male
factors This forum pledge of Mr..
Harmon's has been filled, paradox
eally, by an emptying of the big
penal institution-more convicts hav-
Ing made their escape under Har-
mons warden than during the twenty
years prior. Many Of the fugitives
have been retaken, fortunately. Mean
time, the governor has not one con-
viction to his credit-the Mark Slater
case having emanated elsewhere.
But this is depression.
Became Personal Bureau.
Immediately after the election
Judge Harmon took up with Chair
man Finley the matter of continuing
the Democratic news bureau through
out the winter and, probably, indefi-
nltely. 1t was agreed that the COVER
nor-elect should meet half the ex-
pense and the party chairman the
other half. After a short time the
entire cost of the bureau came out
OF the private purse of the governor.
With the Inauguration OF Governor
Harmon in January, 1909, came an
end to political news. The campaign
bureau graVAated naturally into a
source Of personal publicity for Jud-
son Harmon. Through all the year
and throughout the legislative ses-
sion OF 1910 this dissemination of ia
vorable expression Injured to the Har-
mon benefit, and had the effect of
fixing firmly in the public mind the
picture OF the governor as champion
- a