Arizona republican., 1917-11-18
Press Agents at War

tSamueI G. Blythe in the Saturday |
 Evening PosD
 We learn through the medium of the | press dispatches from Washington that one of the various geniuses who is en- gagged in inventing this country out of the war has invented an invisible 1 ship preliminary, no doubt, to the contrtving of a nondiscernible ocean.
 We also are told that the Liberty Truck. compelled and set forth in the newspapers as l write, is the mos4 wonderful truck in the world We were further informed, a time ago tha5 the Liberty Engine. for aeroDlanes. is 1
 the most wonderful engine in the world Also that our naval building program is the greatest in the world. that our cantonment achievement is the marvel of the world that our ex- penditures are biggest in the same in- sttutlon; and so on, and ditto and likewise. It is drear week when we do not present something, or complete something, or start sOmething-that transcends the universe.
 Wherefore it seems meet to inQuire mildly: What is this-a press agents war? What is the object of the meet lng-publicity for administrators and adhibiters who abide in Washington? Where are we going to fight this war -on the first pages of the newspaDers? One has only to watch the perferVid announcements of all our greatest in ! the world stuff and note the em- inences attached thereto as chief pro- motors; or to proWl about in the ante
 rooms of our war makers in Washing | ton, observing the great stacks of | sheets of yellow paper with press cut i tings pasted thereon for the edification ! of the impersonaI Iaborers. compiled by | the publicity persons attached to each 1 outfit, to make the answer to each l query an amused and unanimous Yes.
 One fancies one of them sWanking
 q bit as he tells a colleague: T had ten columns in the papers yesterday. l How did you make Out2" And the
 chairman of a board, or the admins l trator or some administration or other | or this, or that-One sees each of him Jabbing down the buzzer in the morn
 ing and demanding the clippings. so
 he may observe how far he individual | ly progressed the war the day before | with his particular demonstration of
 the most wonderful or the most i'm | portant, or the most extremely vital
 development of these marvellous enter
 prises that areas we are informed by
 
 est in the world"
 And more closely related to all this
 than would casually seem is the wall
 ing about the people that is heard ir
 exalted places-and some not so ex- alted. It comes mournfully to the ear.
 everywhere in Washington. Said g
 cabinet parsonage, with all his tremo-
 los on: If we only could bring the people to understand"
 So said an army parsonage: a naVy
 parsonage; a senator of ordinary pre- science. if so be there should happer , any other sort; a representative O ? some small acumen: so said variou. wailing deputies of the high, the mid dle and. the low If we only coul, bring the people to understand" t Understand what?" 1 asked of each I severally.
 This war;
 Obviously the retort was: How ca1 I you expect the people to understand l something you yourselves do not un
 derstand?" But why be obvious to tn obvious? Plu-obvious, rather - ant , then some
 ,1 Hence to all wailing Washingtonian . and their number is great-and to al I others who elsewhere wail-greeting = and this homily:
 { You eXude grief at every pore owe the fact. as you state it, that the peopl ? of the United States are not fully cog 4 ntzant of the needs, responsibilities U sacrifices and burdens entaled O :. them by this war: what this wa means and what it implies in th 5 popular sense. You say they do no understand it or appreciate the vast ,. ness or the effort of it. You claim yo 3 discover inertia. laxness, failure | : comprehend and failure to perform e You say it has not sunk in on tn e people yet. and that this bodes evi = You demand a solidarity of the peopl ; for the enterprise, and deprecate wha
 you deem is the lack of it. You hol
 that your war-makings are not gettin the support they should have, or tn understanding they should have; nc ] are the world situation, and the foun l. dations of it, the fundamentals, assim e Hated.
 $ Granting that. for the sake of th' ;s discourse albeit I deny it in it's hroa t, meaning-why is this so? May it nc