New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-08-10
Lord Robert Cecirs Real Service.

1t would not be too much to say that
no Englishman has contributed more to
improving the situation, so far as Anglo
American relations are concerned, than
Lord Robert Cecil. He has done this, too,
not through the machinery of international
official relations. but rather through that
unofficial medium Of intercourse, the news
paper, which, so far as the United States
is concerned at least, has to an unprece-
. denied degree supplanted the ambassador
and the diplomat
After the Dernburg fiasco the Germans
learned their lesson. They no longer un-
dcrtook to supply the American public on
American soil wit, German facts and Ger
man fictions. prepared in such fashion as
only a German could prepare them and
only a German could understand or accept
them. Instead, Tiny fell back upon the
ordinary machinery of American news
~apers; they not alone took advantage of
methods OF American newspapers, but
= used the American correspondents Of
..mcrican newspapers in Berlin. They did
not use them in any wrongful way; there
has been a great deal of unjust criticism
of those correspondents and the news
papers that they have served, both in this
, country and in England.
The business of the American CORE
spondont is to transmit the news that he
ACQUIRES. If the German Chancellor, the
German Crown Prince, if other Germans
Of only less prominence are willing to talk
in The first person, to assert, to describe,
f. declare. the business Of the correspond
cnt is to transmit these declarations, and
anything that these men may say is, IN
. cur iournalese, good copy"
All this was totally foreign to the Brit
ish method of doing business. British aver
sion to this method was enhanced by the
British belief that all or almost all Of
. what these Germans said must be false,
deliberately false and designed TO deceive
To the first suggestions that they follow
the German course and conform to the
conditions and methods of the American
newspaper the British public men re-
sponded with an emphatic negative. If
the Germans chose, as they phrased 1t, to
"Ee to the American public" if the Amer
lean public cared to listen to such state
ments then that was something beyond
the remedy of British public men.
The fallacy of this was patent. The fact
that Germans chose to use American news
papers and correspondents to disseminate
what the British regarded as untruths was
IL. x1rhx
should not take advantage of the same ma
chinery to assert the truth as they saw 1t.
But there was for long time very nat
ural prejudice against doing anything that
seemed to follow the German example.
And the German method did have its
successes. The mass Of the American
public were more or less impressed by the
fact that the German Chancellor was not
too busy to explain his case to the hum
blest American newspaper reader he was
Tot too proud TO talk and to talk as the
American is accustomed to see his own
public men talk whenever there is occasion
for speaking. AS against the utterances
of the Crown Prince or Bethmann-Holl-
veg. the anonymous outgivings of the Brit
ish Press Bureau attracted little attention
and in our newspaper scheme of things
were relocated to inconspicuous corners of
our journals, while the Germans claimed
the front page and the headlines.
All this resulted in grave disadvantages
TO the British, who had practical as well
as sentimental reasons for wanting to have
their side of questions understood in Amer
lea. IL resulted in the rather preposterous
situation in which German officials in Ber-
lin and the German Ambassador in Wash
ington were able to get before the Ameri-
can public in a most conspicuous and ap-
pealing fashion their explanations not
alone of matters affecting Germany and
the United States, but affecting the United
States and Great Britain.
1t is TO the everlasting credit of Lord
Robert Cecil that he was the first British
Cabinet minister to appreciate the situa-
ton as it existed, TO lay aside British ira
dition and prejudice and to talk frankly,
freely and in the form of interview" we
understand in this country to the Ameri-
can correspondents in London. And GER
tainly no one can mistake the effect now.
No one will pretend that Americans have
accepted the point of view Lord Robert has
set forth in many instances. No one will
pretend that he has always carried his au-
dience but the fact is that he has been
able over and over again to get the British
point of view before the great newspaper
reading public of this country.
1t is not too much to say that, in sense,
Lord Robert has come to be the spokesman
for his country, so far as the American
press is concerned. And as its spokesman
he has not, as Britons all feared when the
question of interviews was first consid-
cred. INDUCED in foolish or trouble making