New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-02-18
rHE SHRINE OF EACH PATRIOTS DEVOTION

our newspapers, elCner. During Jueo0
past two weeks the one thing the Amer
lean people needed and wanted was a
chance to sit down and think things
over. We were on the brink of being
drawn into the most stupendous war in
the history of the world. We wanted to
do our duty, to the country and the
world, and we wanted to know the truth
about things, so that we could make up
our minds just what we ought to do. We
wanted to realize the thing that con-
fronted us.
And what has our free and untram-
melted press been doing? Well, it has
printed the news-when there has been
news. But some days there hasn't been
any news. So our newspapers have
printed countless columns of rumor, con-
lecture, personal guesses, private opln-
ions of men who didn't know much more
about the situation than we did. These
columns have been surmounted by enUr-
nous headlines which couldn't have
been any bigger if they had been true.
You could have any kind of news you
wanted. If, on a given morning, you
thought we ought to declare instant war
upon Germany you could read a paper
whose news" fully bore you out in your
opinion. If you didn't want war with
Germany under any circumstances you
could, that same morning, read another
paper whose dispatches were reassur-
ance itself. Or if you didn't know Just
what was going to happen you might, if
you looked long enough, find paper
that would admit that nobody else did,
either.
The evening papers have been espe-
cially Industrious. To-day, for example,
something extremely important may
happen, about three o'clock in the after
noon. In that case, all the American
evening papers that publish Sunday edi-
lions will issue a ten o'clock extra to-
night. But if nothing at all happens
they will issue a ten o'clock extra just
the same. Boys will be bawling it be-
meath your window. You will start up
and listen, then you will run out, bare
headed, to buy a copy Of the special
extra. You will pay five cents to learn
that nothing has happened.
The trouble is that so many newspa-
per owners are more patriotic about the
newspaper business than they are about
the United States. When a Congress
man puts through a pork bill for his
constituents he is being more patriotic
about his district than he is about tie
United States. When power companies
steal waterfalls and spoil rivers, or when
paper companies wipe out forests, they
are being more patriotic about the
power business, or the paper business,
than they are about the United States.
1t is all matter of what we mean BY
patriotism. We are all patriotic, but not
always for the same thing. Just now
we are feeling patriotic for our country.
We have stopped thinking first about
our state, or our town, or our neighbor-
hood, and are putting the United States
first. If we would only do that a little
Cftener we wouldn't have to insist that
this is the finest country in the world;
other people would tell us so.
Patriotism is loyalty to something
bigger than our immediate interests,
and the history of the world is the his
tory of the broadening of patriotism,
the widening of the field of mems loyal
ties. Cavemen were loyal to their fami-
lies. Then they came out of their caves
and formed tribes, and were loyal TO
those. The tribes settled down in vii
lagos, and the members of one village
would defend it to the death against
members of another The villages be-
came clans, and men were loyal to those.
The clans united and became little king
doms. or states, or duchies. Late in the
Middle Ages the little Kingdoms and
duchies became fused into bigger ones,
and men found that they belonged 10 ma
tions. The great war came, and the ma
tionc of Eurone sniff irto two great