New Britain herald., 1914-05-13
ASSOCIATED PRESS IS
 DEFENDED BY WILLARD
New York Evening Post Head A. dresses Newspaper Conference.

l Lawrence, Kansas, May 13.-OsWald
 G. Willard, of the New York Evening 1 Post, addressed yesterday the Kansas l Newspaper conference at the Unive: 1 sity of Kansas. He dealt particularly l with the allegations coming from one l quarter or another to the effect that newspapers and news agencies sup
 pressed news.
 If one could believe all that one
 heard,'' he said. "a true picture of the heads of the press would portray them perpetually behind the arras arrang- ing some plot or other. Men who scent wholesale conspiracies in other individuals usually wind up in the ob-
 servation wards of our hospitals, but
 your next-door neighbor is privileged to believe in day and night conspira- cies of the press without fear of hav- l ing his sanity questioned. Indeed he may be exalted by his doubt. And so We hear of agreements among news papers to ignore this happening. to suppress that and to vilify this or | that defender of the rights of the people, Tn New York city, so deep
 are the clefts between the various newspapers, that you would never
 possibly get their heads to sit down around table. much less break 1 bread together.
 Articles Not Suppressed.
 Although the law has compelled us of the metropolitan press to print the names of all the stockholders and
 bCndholders for year past. it did not surprise me to read an article in current magazine by a distinguished citizen of Indiana to the effect that newspapers ought to be compelled to tell the influences behind them. l have so often heard this rumor that I have mortgaged myself to Wall Street, with the name and address or
 the banker, that I am surprised at nothing. Not if he should throw his ! private books open to Bristow or La Toilette, could a New York editor hope to down this entertaining fiction. He would only hear that his books were doctored, or that he was hldlns behind somebody elses skirts, or that it was the point of view of the men he associated with that really did the mischief-so discredited are news paper managers with certain sections of the people and certain cross--very cross-sections of the politicians.
 If you think I exaggerated, please bear in mind the bitter attacks on the Associated Press the present winter has witnessed. It has been assalled as monopoly, and on one form after another attacked as an organized con- spiracy to suppress every happening that affects progress or radfcallSm- with a capital F and R. Socialists, labor men and progressives alike de- nounce it, because it does not carry their propaganda. Negroes criticise it because it brings out of the south news only of their crimes, and never of their honorable achievements Some congressman never fail to berate it when their other hobbies are for the moment exhausted.
 Controlled by Mob.
 Cautiously enough, the bona-fide malefactors of great wealth equally denounce it as an association con- trolled by the mob, and, therefore, fearing to tell the truth about them. At least this was the excuse offered by bribe giVer who thought he was buying some New York newspapers for trust; he merely wished to se- cure justice for his client, to get thelr side of famous case into print--all this when the other side to the con- troversy was protesting that the As sociated Press was being sold out to the trust. With the Associated Press it is truly case of being damned if you do and damned if you don't. ,It | is berated by Catholics for being sub sidized by Protestants at the moment that anti-Catholics are sure that they have convincing proof that the head of the Associated Press draws post office order for s26s.75 d month from the Pope of Rome,
 "No amount of iteration seems to make anybody understand that if there are grave defects in the Associated Press, the fault lies with the s95 newspapers which comprise its mem bership; that it is a cooperative or ganization, which makes no money profits, and is Argus-eyed in that each newspaper is watching the service, ready to make the telephone bells tin gle if a happening is overlooked or anything improper is put over the wires; that there are hundreds of honest newspaper men in the Asso- clated Press who would as soon sell their wives and children as to know ingly let anyone use the service to grind an axe or feather his nest
 Can Suggest Nothing Better.
 Tt all avails not; the answer is: You can tell by the trend of it that it is capitalistic-as if there were not every shade of opinion in the Asso ciated Press. It's very president is. I am told, a socialist, at least in theory-but of what use is that? Every man with a. nropaQanda to fur ther is convinced, if his copy is re- jected because it is argument or as- sertion and not news, that he has