The Springdale news., 1917-01-12
THAT IS NORMAL CONDITION OF AMERICAN SECRETARIES
 OF STATE.
SURPRISING TO FOREIGNERS
No lntimation of What the Govern nent Intends to Do in Matters of Diplomacy Ever Is Given to the People.
By GEORGE CLINTON.

say that dumb is used here simply in the sense of speaks not"
 Most people have in mind, probably, l the recent speaking twice in one day of Secretary of State Lansing. It was l so exceptional, that the American world is not only amazed but stag l gered, and part of the rest of the world with 1t. The truth is that from the dawn of the first day of the repub- 1 lie American secretaries of state re- mained dumb so far as the public is concerned on every diplomatic project until the hour came to lay the thing 1 before the world.
 Foreigners who come to Washington are more than surprised because the American people do not demand, or seemingly even do not care to have, advance information of what the state 1 department intends to do Let 1t be said right here that the reticence of the state department under the pres ent administration is simply repeu- ton Of the retieence of state depart ments under all previous administra- tiOns
 President Wilson's appeal for peace fell on the ears of an astonished world.
 Scarcely anyone had the slightest idea 1 that he was to speak. His secretary Of state maintained the stony silence of good servant, although, according to his own statement later, the matter was under discussion for weeks. feh
 Washington students of conditions account for the readiness of the Amer l ican people to let the state department alone and not to ask for advance in- l formation, to the knowledge that the people have that if they do not like what an administration does through It's state department they can get rid of the administration. An Engiishman said recently in Washington that the 1 people in his country always insist that when some big thing is to be done 1 by the foreign office, an intimation of what it is to be shall be given in ad- l vance
 Of course, fn England they can get 1 rid of their foreign ministers pretty nearly as they want to, but they can not get rid of the monarchy, and ai- l though the monarchy does not have much to say the old time impression 1 that it is q power still remains and, l according to an Englishman of note I here, 1t is because of that the English 1 people have to be told something about what their state department intends to do.
 The American public did not know until less than year ago how close we were to having war with q Euro pean nation over South American mat ters when Theodore Roosevelt was 1 president.
 The American people did not know in advance anything about Grover | tleyelands intention to address the challenging note that he did to Great Britain on the Venezuela boundary matter. Everything that comes out of our state department comes out like n | Jack from its Box. The American people do not even realize that a spring Is to be pressed or button to be punched.
 Newspaper men go to the state de- partment daily and have been going | daily ever since there were any Wash ington correspondents. The informa- ton that they get almost invariably is on things that have been accomplished, not on things that an attempt Is to be ! made to accomplish. Day after day recently the correspondents went to the state department and yet they got no inkling of the administration in- tention to give to the world its peace appeal, or rather, it's request to the belligerents to make known the terms upon which peace might be accept able.
 rl.o C... aI. Il.