Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1917-09-19
Letters From
Our Readers
Editor Grand Forks Herald:

~ NS 14O1o ~ E-ErH
AS much as I appreciate your ad-
vocacy of A~mericanism I am unable
to agree with you, when you deal with
the question Of newspapers In foreign {
languages in this country. Although
you do not belong to the extremeists,
who seem to favor the suppression Of
all papers in foreign languages, you
seem nevertheless to regard the for
eign language papers as an, evil. You
do not advocate the suppression Of these
papers, but you thought to do so. If
they be an evil at all. Instead YOU
advocate, that all foreign language
papers be compelled S~toecarry a trans
iaIion OF their war news and editor
ials bearing upon the war.
That to do SO would be a great in
convenience andsa waste Of time, any
newspaper man will see. It should
be unnecessary to point to the in
Justice this Inconvenience and waste
Of time would work on loyal papers.
And why should q loyal newspaper be
required to do this?
Is It because The Herald susnects
anything written in a foreign Language
and because he. is not able to read
more than the English language?
Should "a publisher suffer, because
some editors could not or would not
learn foreign languages.
Dut lHere Is anOther objection to
the proposition, which The Herald
does not seem to be aware of. There
are TRANSACTIONS and TRANSACTIONS.
Anybody who Is familiar with the
work of translating from n language
into another will know how Easy it is
to shade a translation. This would
be taken advantage Of by disloyal pa
pers, n the result would be, that the
TRANSACTIONS would have to be sub
| TntffaHa IN Gnro q 00~o~ ~
yerification. Why not submit the
foreign papers in the first place to
some competent authority and be done
with it?
The postal department could easily
arrange this by engaging a few men
who could handle a few Languages
each, and they could inform the gov
eminent as soon as anything wrong
appeared in any Of the foreign Ian.
guage papers
In Germany no foreign language
papers are published, because the gov
eminent won't permit 1t. America
should not come to this intolerance.
The British empire does not suffer, be-
cause it is SO liberal, that it permits
Arabian, F,renc or Dutch. England
IS great, because she is tolerant,
America should not initiate Germany.
hi idea, that when a man chooses
to speak any other language than the
English, he does so, because he wants
to hide something, is unworthy Of
educated men.
A. II. LINDELIH.
Editors Note:-Mr. Lindelie rather
misses the point. The suggestion
that a translation accompany a for
leign language articleSwas not intend
ed for the convenience Of the editors
who might wish to comment. II he
cannot translate for himself he &
employ some one to do 1t for him.
But the ma or the street, the every
day citizen cannot do this. And the
translation would be useful to the ex-
tent that 1t would remove most OF the
privacy which now surrounds the
article published in a foreign tongue.
Discussion Of the legal requirement Of
such a. translation is academic, as
there is no prospect for legislation Of
this kind. But The Herald remains
of h opinion that loyal foreign-lan-
guage papers could perform a good
service by publishing such transia-
ItiOna vo1.1nfn ,ily S4Nst