The chronicle=news., 1914-08-17
tFrom the New York Times.)

NTioub INV .N'" wi n
For some reason not clearly dis
cernible, Americans of the German
blood are complaining with no little
bitterness of the attitude OF the
American press and the American
people. They say that the Americans
and their newspapers are unfair to
Germany. are unfriendly. are even
hostile. We have seen no evidence
of that unfriendliness. We know
that the American people are not
unfriendly to Germany. For the
Germans they entertain sentiments
OF great respect and admiration. The
charge OF unfriendliness is without
warrant. 1t is unfounded.
Equally without warrant or foun-
dation. we think. is the charge that
the American newspapers are unfair
to Germany. Our German friends
here 90 to the length of saying that
news favorable to Germany has been
suppressed by the newspapers. that
dispatches have been distorted, col
ored. "doctored," in way to mis-
represent Germany and put her in
an evil light before the world.
The charge Is flagrantly false. In
dividual offenses of that nature may
have been committed in irrespon-
siblc quarters, but the leading news
papers of the United States have
treated news from Germany as they
have treated news from Russia,
France. England or Austria, not on
ly because they are above the vice
which pertained to a much earlier
journalistic age, but because they
have too much business sense and
Judgment to poison their own life
blood.
Our German friends complain that
news from Germany is filtered
through English or French channels.
They cannot. surely, be ignorant of
the fact that the direct German cable
service has been interrupted and, ac-
cOrding to the statement of the Com
mercial Cable company, the interrupt
tion is due to the act of Germany,
since the cables were cut or seized,
not at the Azores but near the Emden
shore end in Germany. At this mo-
ment the New York newspapers
would pay very high prices for news
direct from Germany. Can our Ger
man friends supply it? But how can
1t be said that German news is sup
pressed when the Kaisers correspond
ence with the cZar. when his speech
and that of the German chancellor to
the Reichstag were published in full,
when the emperor's addresses and
proclamations to the German people
have found a conspicuous place in the
news columns?
No. there has been no trace of un-
fairness in the behavior of the
American newspapers. We have an
impression. which it would take
good deal of evidence to remove, that
the trouble with our German friends
lies elsewhere. Many. perhaps most,
American newspapers have put upon
the German emperor great part o:
the responsibility for bringing on the
war. They have pointed to his
great influence with Austria, to the
probability that he might have re-
Austria from lifting her
hand against Servia. They have re-
marked upon his remonstrances
against Russian and French mobiliz-
alton when. according to reports from
many sources, reports confirmed by
the direct statement of the French
minister of foreign affairs, mobiliza-
ton within the empire was moving
swiftly forward.
These things after all are only de-
tails, and possibly the American
jress is mistaken, though its error
appears to be shared by pretty much
III the world not directly involved
n the strife. What the American
newspapers have more directly and
condemned is the mill
.ary system of Germany. the imper-
nj system based upon immense mill
ary power, the autocratic form of
the persistence in Ger
many, as in Russia and Austria, OF
he ancient doctrine of the divine
light of kings. monstrous absurd
ty in these modern times, source
If woes unnumbered TO peoples who
night be continuously happy. peace