The Cordova daily times., 1921-10-14
FRIDAY, OCTOBER II, 1921
OPENLY ARRIVED AT"

If the editors and publishers of the United States have the same foresight which they demand of their reporters and correspondents and will act on it, the world is going to get some real news out of this new peace confer cnce which is to meet in Washington during the coming winter months.
 If they haven't this foresight, or if through inertia and lack of initiative they fail to act then the chances are most excellent that the gathering of the powers i'll Washington will be a duplicate of the abortivc gathering at Paris. so far as the obtaining and publishing of plain, honest facts are concerned. There will be a duplication of the "canncd' and "oficiaI' statements which tell nothing which really hide rather than reveal news.
 The conference at Paris. which witnessed the greatest gathering of journalists the world has eyer seen, dragged through six weary months. And now-two years later-thc world is still slowly finding out what really happened there.
 Ii is no reflection on the American cor respondents at Paris that this condition of affairs existed. They fought for news. They were 100 per cent for "opcn covenants openly arrived at But they were in a strange land. bcsct by conditions and regulations with
 
 ing of which their voices had no part They did the best they could three thousand miles away from home support.
 But the setting of this winters conference, at least, is going to he different. The Amer can correspondents are going to be playing on home grounds, amid conditions with which they are familiar
 The coming conference should be open. But the Washington correspondents themselves can't open it up. There must b" som" back ing from home.
 It is a tritc and hackncycd thing to harp on the "powrr of the prcs~.' and it probably i'll becomes the press itself to harp on it. But as surely as two and two make four, this conference can be opened up to the press if the combined editorial strength of the coun- try-big newspapers, little newspapers, week lies and monthIies-gct behind the proposi- tion and DEMAND TT
 After al why shouldn't this conference be open! What is there to conceal? What strange murky, dark things are to be pulled off behind closed doors that the heads of gov ernments are afraid to let the people in on?
 Why shouldn't the people who pay for the battIcshipS and then fight the battles have a look at the inside of this conference! Why shouldn't they see who are the obstruction lSlS lo international peace II thcr" are to h" any? Why shouldn't the peoples of the world constitute the audience of this colossal show, tthe working out of whose plot affects every man, woman and child in the civilized world
 And how else can this be accomplished cx- cept through the press? How else is it pos sible except by permitting reportcrs-not journalists and ponderous economists, but reporters sitting on the sdelnes and re porting FACTS, just as they daily report trials, fires, accidents and pageants'
 It can be accomplished in just one way, and that is for the press of America to swing behind it. It is extremely doubtful if it can be put over in any other way. And the re- pOrters can't do it. It's up to the editors, the policy makers, and the wieders of the editorial clubs.
 Ire conference is gc:ng to try to do some of the things that the Paris conference failed