Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1914-08-20
All War News From Europe
Haste Pass Nine Censors
Most Rigid Supervision in the History Of Electrical Communica-
ton Is Exercised by Warning Governments to Prevent
Secrets Rea aching Enemies.

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houses which send anywhere from
500 to $1,000 worth of cable mes
sages a day in normal times.
Danger in Cipher Messages.
In peaceful periods, these "mys-
terry" phrases are not regarded as
sinister and are accepted. But now
the most important message, with a
vital bearing on the great conflict
now raging throughout Europe, might
be flashed yer the cable as a sim
pie, innOcuous business communities
ton, and so the companies have post
ed this order in all stations:
Gables whose meanings are not
obvious are liable to suppression
without notice or recourse"
Which means. that if there is the
slightest -suspiciOnsin the mind Of the
cable manager OF, later, the censor
that a. message has a double meaning
or might bear secret information to a
warning nation, or II it is in any way
Objectionable in the estimation of
the cable company or the censors, it
is passed along, payment for 1t hav-
ing been made, and somewhere along
the line It is spiked" and never sees
the light again.
In America there is NJ censorship
on messages to- Japan, parts of China
certain stations in. Africa and Asia,
and some parts of Europe. The COM
panies will take. anything to those
places and it will 60 through. But to
most of the points messages have to
pass through a British, French or
German cable station, and there they
must run the, gauntlet of censorship,
because nowhere in the world is
there a cable station of any one of
the warning countries without a CEN
sor to, pass upon all messages.
Should a correspondent manage
after riding the lines of a dozen
armies to make his way to a cable
station far from the Of conflict
and try to file a story to his newspa-
per in the United States or South
America or to somes other country
which is at peace, the chances are
twenty tosone -thatshe would find him
self in a British or French cable sta
ton and as helpless las though he
We're in the most rigidly censored sta
ton in either France or England.
Keep Faets froHssthe Enemy.
The rules are the same the world
over, and theScensors everywhere un-
derstand them and are inflexible. The
governments now fighting do not
want anything printed that might in
flame adverse public sentiment in
their own countries, cause uneasiness
among sympathizers in friendly sand
peaceful nations, shed light upon the
movements of troops or battle ships
or give the slightest clew to the enc
my.
The cable companies are presumed
to have aSsentimental loyalty to their
countries, but this is not regarded as
sufficiently, profound to keep them
from taking ,busine $, and so the gov
ernments step in and merely take
full charge of the cables. The COM
panies have no redress. In times of
war the individual or the business
house the AFFECT creature of the
government. His private property
may be SEIZED his personal actions
regulated or restrained; he may be
thrown into jail and he has no re-
dress except. the courts, which pre-
sumably would defer all action until
hostilities we're ended.
Just at present news of the armies
in Europe comes from Belgium,
France or England. In each of those
countries there is a censorship that
is far more drastic than anything this
country knewt during the Spanish
American War Or that obtained dur
ing the BoerS war in South Africa. Ac-
cording to the cable company off
Gals here, every message that is filed
in the war countries for publication
in this country must have a dupli-
cate sent at once to the State Depart
ment of the country in which it is
filed. II
The government Is supposed to wise
this before the cable company can
send II. But this is only a prelimin-
airy part Of the censorship system.