The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-07-13

From the Philadelphia Public Ledger. 5f1ROM the days of Bismarck a rep l tile press has been maintained in = Germany by the government. It would be unfair to say that every Ger ] man newspaper is under government con- troll Those that print what the govern ment wants them to print are let alone; those that do not are liable to seizure and suppression for the time being. If sharp criticism of the government is al- low ed to appear, it is because the gov ernment has some reason of its own for l allowing it. Bearing these facts in mind there is no difficulty in understanding why, from the beginning of the war, German diplomacy tried to work through [ the American press. It accomplished much by indirection; it succeeded now and ther by misrepresentations of fact in col bring opinion; but to the credit of Amer ican journalism it rarely had the least success in corrupting an American news paper. The direct purchase of one was therefore an expedient which would nat urally occur to Won Bernstorff and his collea gues against neutral nation. They went about it with their usual skill, and they hid their tracks so successfully that only now the ownership of the New York
 Mail by the German government is re-
 vealed.
 Tho indirect, crooked means" by
 which they transferred the money to the
 former owner, the use of MT. Stoddard
 and MT. Mcclure to promote unWittlngly
 their purposes the appearance of pr.
 Rumely, an American citizen. as the
 buyer of the property--all these are tricks too familiar. The German government IS
 credited with putting nearly N,5oo,ooo into
 the venture. As in the case of most or it's propaganda, the money was wasted. The Mail had nothing to sell. It had manifested pro-German tendencies before pr. Rumely appeared on the scene. Any direct utterance in favor of Germany must therefore arouse suspicion. It could do its dirty work only in undernand ways Its chief service to its new owner if that was a service-was it's bitterly anti English tone. The number or us readers was uE1ltcos anu ANo upou public opinion was practically nil Thus even before America entered the war the expense of buying and running it was out of all proportion to the re- suits. After that there were no results at all.
 MT. Stoddard has now resumed control of the Mail, but it's future value must he regarded as problematie. It was long freak paper-particularly when Colonel Shepard owned it-and it never had any standing in American journalism. In the days when it was the Mail and Express it was known popularly as the Vail and
 Distress. That Von Bernstorff could aver have believed it might be an eff cient organ of German propaganda is an- o,ber illustration of the limits of his in- tcllieence in dealing with the American people. He could not see that reptile press of the German kind was impossi- ble here, that, whatever mischief the Mail might do, it could not by any chance
 produce substantial results. He was no
 more able to create an instrument of treason by purchase than by subtlier
 methods It was part of the sly cun- ming which characterized all his activities
 to apply German ideas to a nation to
 which they were utterly foreign. The Mail no doubt seemed promising rep-