Valdez daily prospector., 1914-12-30
DECEMBER 30. 191..
THE WAR CORRESPONDENTS.


 the hero of journalism and the ad- miration of the public. Instead of be. ing welcomed on the firing line, he is clapped into jail. Instead of military strategists asking his advice, they treat him as a spy, and belligerent governments kill his work with bru- tai censorship.
 And yet the correspondents in this great war have acquitted themselves in a way that sheds honor on their profession. They have refused to die off. Suffering bigger handicaps than they or their brethren have ever be- fore experienced, they have shown courage and resourcefulness rare in any other department of human work.
 They have gone to the front against orders, with passports or with out them. They have defied autho":. ity, endured arrest over and over again, returning to the firing line as soon as liberated They have risked execution for disobedience to orders, they have risked being shot as spies, they have gathered news in the trenches and in besieged cities under a rain of bullets and shells, with the coolness and stoicism of veteran sol diers. They have gone sleepless for days at stretch. They have suffer- ed cold and hunger and all manner of hardship And for what? To let the public know the truth about 2 many-sided war.
 It isn't very appreciative public, either. It is a public whose attitude puzzles the correspondents. With the strict censorship that prevails, and the deliberate suppression and doc ent government, it is impossible for the American reader to get the facts except as they come from trust worthy representatives of American newspapers And yet, for some req son or other, the newspaper reader seems to take a maevolent delight in learning that the correspondent has failed in his efforts.
 The whole difficulty arises from a misconception of the functions of a war correspondent. The reader some how or other has got the notion that the correspondent is a busybody, butt ing in where he has no right, and ln- terfering with the proper conduct of the war The military gentlemen who run the campaigns are largely imbu ed with the same error. Hence, the correspondent, trying to serve the reader at home and perhaps also the nation whose army he accompanies, and actuated above all by a desire to perform service of humanity by telling the whole truth about past events, is hampered in action and his message is mutilated and underval- ued.
 It should be understood that, m general, the war correspondents are the pick of the country's active and efficient newspaper men, that they are not only trained observers and competent writers, but are pre-emi- nently trustworthy.
 An American correspondent was thrown into jail by French officer for informing him that the corres- o"ndent's word was as good as that of any general in the French army The correspondent told the blunt truth. He would break through a cordon of red tape or a ring of bayo- nets to get to the front; having ar- rived there, he could be depended on absolutely to write or utter nothing prejudicial to the interests of France
 It is the inability of soldiers to ap- preciate this high honor and intelli- gence of the correspondents that leads to stupidity in handling them. As matter of fact, the correspou- dents are much better judges of what is advisable to print than are the military men. In England, where the censorship has been especially blum dering, the authorities are slowly coming to realize this.
 There are issues involved far big ger than any consideration of the success of this or that writer or news paper or news service. This is war in which, above all other wars. the world has right and duty to learn the facts. No nation at war will of it's own accord permit the publication of the full trgttl :Fhe only way for the impastt Wsd to see the con.