Evening star., 1935-09-29
CENSORSHIP OF PRESS
BECOMES A BOOMERANG
In Italy and Germany Suppressed
Citizens Come to Believe Any and
All Sub-ROsa Stories.
BY ALBIN E. JOHNSON,

~ IN Germany, MAJ s' italy, " Russia ssss' and and
a the states where freedom of
the press, free speech and liberty of
conscience are non-existent. And even
with all that has been written there
still remains much to be revealed
about the negative aspects of this
1avorite prop of relationships.
But there is another side of the
picture which casual observers seldom
see and those who denounce censor
ships neglect to emphasize. That is
the fact that in countries where the
people have once enjoyed free press
and free speech censorship inevitably
tends to defeat its own ends.
This phenomena apparently is
happening. albeit slowly and pain
fully, in Fascist Italy and NaI Ger
many and to a certain extent in Por-
tugal, Spain, Poland, Austria and
Yugoslavia. where newspapers are sub
3ected periodically to official super
vision or control. Soviet Russia,
where the majority of people who can
now read and write have never known
other than the state-operated Com
munist press, is an exception.
In Italy and Germany, the most
censor r-saddled nations in the world
today, censorship is proving a BOOM
erang. 1t has developed into two
edged sword, as dangerous for Mus
solini and Hitler. who WELD it, as it
is distasteful to the people who have
to exist under it. At the beginning
of all relationships or in national
crises censorships unquestionably are
unavoidable and sometimes desirable
for those in ONCE. But a censorship
is like an opiate or a narcotic. It
either lulls the people into a feeling
OF false well-being or fuses them to-
gether artificially for an abnormal
may be beneficial in small quantities
to an individual, censorship in large
doses to a body polite is detrimental
to q nations political health.
Hard to Break.
The narcotic habit, once acquired,
Is hard to break; censorship, once
imposed. can seldom be moderated or
lifted without endangering the ex-
istence of the regime which has been
established under its influence. Both
Hitler and Mussolini have learned that
lesson. Despite their claims that the
German and Italian press are 100 per
cent Nazi and Fascist, they dare not
lessen the absolute control they have
over the printed and spoken word in
their countries.
In Germany and Italy the press has
lost its potency.
To the Simon-pure members of the
Fascist and National-SocialiSt parties
1t Is merely house organ. The man
in the street" in Berlin and Rome con-
siders his newspaper as nothing more
or less than an Official bulletin" of
the government with sprinkling Of
innocuous news interspersed to make
1t more palatable. AS result it is
safe to say that there Is hardly
newspaper in Germany or Italy, or
even in Russia, worthy Of the name
that today stands upo its own feet
financially. They are all either owned
outright by the state or party or are
supported and subsidized by the die
tatorship. Their paid circulations,
which are pitifully meager, tell the
story; their paid advertising is prac-
tically non-existent.
MuSsolini and Hitler had two OBJ
jectives in mind when they established
their censorships. The first goal was
to withhold from the public informa-
tion which might be detrimental to
their regimes; the second was to feed
readers news, either true or mislead-
ing If politically expedient, that would
serve to strengthen their hold upon
the populace. BY suppressing or con-
fiscating newspapers and periodicals
Of all kinds and issuing DEGREES and
establishing propaganda MINISTRIES"
1t was comparatively easy to stop dis
semination of unfavorable news. To
make the public accept without re-
serve everything that was published
was another matter. The intelligent
German and Italian newspaper reader
Of today attaches no political impor-
tance whatsoever to his daily paper
except as a source of one-sided Off
cial information. And as for accept
ing as gospel truth the accounts of
political events as they appear only
the most stupid reader confesses to
such credulity.
Youth Affected.
While 1t is undoubtedly true that
In Italy and Russia a generation of
young people, not old enough to have
taken an interest In political events
Of is years ago when the Blackshirts
marched upon Rome, or two decades
ago when the bolshevists seized the
government in Russia, has been in
huenced by the all-Fascist and all
Communist training they have re-
ceived through rigidly supervised
newspapers. In Germany the Nazi
censorship has not been established
long enough to stamp out Hitler
political influences. Also the genera
tion which reached manhood and
womanhood before the armistice, in
Italy and Germany particularly. still
thinks for itself although it reads
what the relationships provide. For
obvious reasons, these people seldom
think out loud, but nevertheless they
think seriously.
The unfortunate break for Hitler
and Mussolini is the tendency of their
public to doubt much that is published
officially and to believe almost every-
tttng that comes to them from un-
censored sources or through unofficial
channels. Their line of reasoning is
that If the government suppresses
something 1t must be true, otherwise
why 60 to the trouble Of suppress
ing it.
So worried are the Fascists and
Nazis about impressions" that might
be gained by the public that it is
serious crime to be caught In possess
sion Of forbidden literature, newspa-
pers or periodicals which have been
banned, or to engage in critical COM
ment about the regimes, privately or
publicly. The suspicious state of mind
which exists among the INTELLIGENT