The evening leader. (Tarpon Springs, Fla.) 191?-19??, 1918-01-26
SECRECY FOSTERS ABUSES.

II TN discussing ABUSES Are Foster
ed by Secrecy says that between a
censorship that would withhold all
military information from the public
and so attain what undoubtedly is the
ideal of not a few army officers and
of almost all department and bureau
chiefs, and one that merely saw to it
that obvious treason was suppressed,
there ought to be a golden mean.
That mean has not yet been found
in any belligerent country, and here
as everywhere else the censors do
too much rather than too little. The
excess, too, has been so great here
that there is gooed excuse, if not quite
full justification, for saying, as does
the New York World, that "for most
of the unnecessary privations and
hardships which the troops in certain
camps have suffered by reason of fail
ure to obtain proper clothing and sup
plies the army may thank its censor
ship"
Certainly it is true that if the news
paper correspondents at the several
camps had been allowed exactly to de-
scribe the conditions existing in them,
there would have been long before this
precisely the cutting of red tape in
the several departments that has fol-
lowed the publicity given to those con-
ditions by congressional investiga-
tons.
And nobody in his senses would
contend that the current revelations of
negligence and incompetence have
really helped our enemies or have
hurt anybody at all except the depart
ment officials whose well-intentioned
slavery to routine and custom those
revelations have so rudely disturbed
Unrestrained publicity and unre-
stricted freedom to criticise do indeed
have their dangers and disadvantages.
Among them is to be counted that the
result often will be the making of
hasty ard false accusation against
men who are doing their efficient best
for their country, at no profit to them
selves except the consciousness of du-
ty done. Even that, however, such
men should not too much resent.
Calumny they can usually refute in
time, and the task of doing it is a part
of the service they rendered. the
price they should be willing to pay for
the privilege of serving. Their fate at
the worst is not as hard as that of the
men who suffer and die on the firing
line while too many who should be
there with them remain safely at
home and do nothing at all.
And on the censorship angle re-
lating to actual war news, we have the
word of Sir Frederick E. Smith, attor-
ney general of England, Britain's CEN
sor in the first years of the war, who
is now visiting New York, that censor
ing has been overdone.
He says:
"The morale of a nation at home
is quite as vital a thing to be main
tanned as the morale Of an army at
the front. And to my mind the NOR
ale of those back home may best be
kept at a high point by complete news
of their armies"
He says tell what troops have been
in combat; tell how they have Jared.
Tell any individual or collective deeds
of heroism they have performed. Let
the people know just what their
friends and neighbors who went out
to fight for them are accomplishing.
If the enemy knows what units were
involved in battle certainly the peo-
pie at home should know.
A censorship, he says, should not
merely say "our troops" did such and
such a thing. England made a seri-
ous mistake early in the war by
adopting that method, with the re-
suit that the Canadians and Austria
lians got all the credit, while IS pei
cent of the casualties in those days
were men who went out from Eng
land. Now the censor allows reports
to say tour West County troops
"our Lancashire troops" and FIRE.
quently the name Of the unit itself
Sir Frederick argues that is is con.
ISOLATION for those who lose friends
in knowing where, when and how they
fell and that news of a battle provides
the popular inspiration and stimula-
lation to those who remain behind to
do their share.
As the opinion of England's first
censor these ideas are worth consid-
GRAFTON, especially in view of the new
modification of our American volun-
tary censorship rules.
May we not look forward to anoth-
or revision soon along h1.0ader-n1inded