The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1918-02-05
TRUTH THAT HURTS
sSUT l.

There are obvious disadvantages
and dangers in carrying OF public in
vestigations of governmental activi-
ties during a critical period of a war.
Such action checks progress temper
arily. diverts the energies of officials.
causes confusion in the departments
and creates distrust and alarm in the
public mind.
The present inquiry into the meta
DDS of the war department, neverthe
less, has not only justified itself, but
has revealed conditions which demand
that the examination be pursued with
relentless vigor. The committees at
titude is impartial as well as earnest.
Democratic members are vigilant in
seeking facts respecting the Demo
cratic administration, and the Repub-
licans show no partisan animus; both
groups are manifestly animated by d
patriotic desire to get al the truth and
discover means of r%emedying defects.
But in any event, the need for the
investigation has been demonstrated,
and its results have been of immeas-
ureable value. For while thus far il
has brought out only surface facts, it
has shocked the American people into
an understanding that the nation is
imperiled by gross and well-nigh fatal
incompetence in high places; and,
more important still, it has broken
down the barrier of censorship behind
which inefficiency and laundering and
sloth have done their deadly work.
Revelations already made have been
sufficient to cause the transfer of the
heads of bureaus. Other changes are
sure to follow. The cabinet itself will
be affected. If President Wilson does
not voluntarily replace Secretary of
War Baker by a man competent to fill
the post, public sentiment will as
suredly voice a demand for this
action.
Popular interest naturally has been
concentrated upon the disclosures of
official stupidity and neglect. But a
result far more vital than these is the
smashing of the system of secrecy
which was fabricated to protect them.
Never again will the American people
submit to a perverted censorship
which is made a shelter for incompe-
tence endangering the armies of the
republic and its very existence.
Perhaps the most humiliating thing
asked of the newspapers was the
printing of the utterly puerile "strate-
gical review" issued weekly by the
secretary of war, with its grossly in
accurate statements and misleading
interpretations, which represented
Germany as helpless at a time when
every news dispatch showed her pre-
pairing deadly blows, and dismissed
the Italian disaster as a trifle without
any bearing upon the general situa-
ton.
Obviously, nothing else is compaI-
able in urgency to the need of sup
plying clothing for shivering troops,
decent care for the sick, and weapons
for the forces at the front or in train
ing. But in the long run, an accom-
plishment of greater Importance is
the emancipation of the newspapers
from the obligation of supporting and
protecting official incompetence.
With the press Engaged and a dis
honest censorship discredited, the
public will not be stupefed again by
the waves of boastful and deceptive
poison gas" from Washington, but
will have a clear understanding OF
the war and will be able to scrutinize
ut least the general system of man
agement. Once the agencies of pub
licity haev resumed effectually their
normal functions, the evils of Baker
ism and Crozierism will be eliminated
and the sacrifices of the American
people will be translated into new
measures of national defense Phil
adelphia North American.