New Britain herald., 1917-02-14
PAPERS BOUGHT TO
 AID PREPAREDNESS
Financiers and Munitions Makers
 Accused in Congress


 for an investigation of charges print ed in The Congressional Record by Representative Oscar Callaway, of Texas, a pacifist democrat, that "the J. P. Morgan interests, the steel ship building, and powder interests had purchased control of twenty-five great newspapers to further the prepared ness campaign, was made in the house yesterday by Representative J. Hamp- ton Moore, a Pennsylvania republican. Mr. Moore said MT. Galloway had ob- tained unanimous consent to extend his remarks in The Record, and his charges had not been read on the floor but buried in The Record.''
 1T question whether a single news paper in the United States has taken cognizance of the remarks of the gen. tleman from Texas" said MT. Moore. T believe they constitute matter of high privilege.
 He said that unless some democrat introduced a resolution to investigate the truth of the charges he would offer such a resolution
 Following the Moore speech Con- sressman Galloway told interviewers that he could produce proof of his charges, and said Representative Tav- enner of Illinois would offer immedi- ately a resolution for an investigation of alleged inspired newspaper articles in behalf of preparedness and par ticipation in the European war;
 The Charges. .
 Mir. Callaway's speech, as inserted in The Record, charged:
 Tn March, 1915, the J. P. Morgan interests tho steel, sh1pbuilding and powder interests, and their subsidiary organizations got together twelve men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select from the most influential papers in the United States sufficient number of them ;o control generally the policy of the daily press of the United States.
 Ihese twelve men worked the prob- lem out by selecting 179 newspapers ana then began. by an elimination process, to retain only those necessary TOT the purpose of controlling the ger- eral policy of the daily press through out the country. They found it was only necessary to purchase the control of twenty-five of the greatest news papers. The twenty-five papers were agreed upon; emlssaries were sent to purchase the policy, national and in- ternatfonal, of these papers: an agree ment was reached, the policy of the papers was bought, to be paid for by the month; an editor was furnished for each paper to properly supervise and edit information regarding the questions of preparedness, militia rism, financial policies and other things of national and internatioal nature con- sidered vital to the interests of the purchasers.
 "The contract is in existence at the present time and it accounts for the news columns of the daily press of the country being filled with all sorts of preparedness arguments and misrep- resentations as to the present condi- ton of the United States army and navy. and the possibility and proba- bility of foreign foes.
 "The policy also included the SUD- pression of everything iE opposition to the wishes of the interests served. The effectiveness of this scheme has been demonstrated by the char acter of the stuff carried in the daily press throughout the country since March, 1915.
 'They have resorted to anything necessary to commercialize public sentiment and sandbag the national into makig extravagant and wasteful appropriations for the army and navy under the false pretense that it was necessary. Their stock argu- ment is patriotism. They are play ing on every prejudice and passion of the American people,"
 Mr. Slayden asked MT. Moore what he construed the word "sandbag" to mean.
 "It means to drive congress into corner and make them believe we are