The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1918-01-24
Censorship i'm France.

According to Wythe Williams, Par
is correspondent of the New York
Times, who publishes IAN open
letter to the American public
in Golfers under the title
1.-THE Sins of the Censor" the
life of the correspondent at the
front is not happy one, because of
constant interference by the censors.
He takes the position not only that
much the American public should
know is deleted by the censors, but
that the whole organization and
spirit of ou r censorship is wrong and
hurtful.
He says the attitude of West Point
officers in France towards newspaper
correspondents is one of cordial
tolerance" of an unnecessary. evil"
foisted upon them by the War de-
partment. West point courtesy pre-
walls in actual communication, every
where officers and men are instructed
not to talk to correspondents. Mr..
Williams takes the position that the
American army in France needs the
cordial cooperation of the public at
home in order to win this war; and
that trained newspaper men, who
know what is news, and what will
effect or create public sentiment, are
far better judges of what news should
be sent to America than West Point
officers, whose whole point of view
and training are military.
He says by way of Illustration that
it would have been fine thing to tell
Americans that our troops were in
the land and town of Jeanne D'Arc,
a fact known to everybody else, the
Germans included. He says the Ger
mans have flown over our camps
many times, and distributed pamph-
lets addressed Ito the Americans. !"
Everybody in Europe knows exactly
where our troops are, and only our
people at home are kept in ignorance.
He comedies that it was right not to
mention the ports at which our
troops first landed, or their first en-
campments in France, but now the
Germans know them all, and there
is no use in withholding Information
from the people at home. He con-
tends that the "air service has so
destroyed land strategy that it is i'm
possible to keep any army movements
very much of a secret. If any large
scale offensive is planned, the artill-
cry concentration Immediately ad-
vises the enemy what is up even if
his airplanes do not. So that about
the only important secret that can
be kept nowadays is the exact hour
(the zero hour') when the infantry
goes over the top"
He says the dispatches of the
correspondent at the front go first to
American censors in the field, and
after passing here are sent to the
central telegraph office at the Paris
Bourse which is the general head
quarters of the French censors. There
a second batch of American censors
recensor copy already passed by
their y superiors at the front.
This housing the American and
French censors in the same
room "hase most unfortunate re-
suits as one censors what another
has already passed and together it
is "a brotherhood of stupidity"
Mr.. Williams says that after three
years working under censorship he is
convinced that the organization is
bad, the efforts mischievous, and will
result in prolongation of the war.
He "believes in restraint upon any
news that would be of any use to
the enemy; but at this point my
belief in censorship ends" He con-
tends that instead of censorship
which withholds everything of
interest to the people at home, there
should be organized ''The War Pub
licity Bureau of the United States
Expenditionary Forces" He con-
tends there should be published the
things that our we'll known officers
do (which would thrill America"
and legitimate criticism as we'll. IF
we had been allowed to cut loose we
would by this time have had all
America on tiptoe to see that we do
our share in beating the Central