Evening star., 1936-07-18
PAPERS PRAISED
AS CRITIC FORCE
Fight for SkepticaI Attitude
Carried Alone by Press,
Editor Says.
Nv the Associated Press.

Nv the Associated Press.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va, July 18.
Felix Morley, editor of the Wash
inston Post, today praised the news
paper profession as potent force for
TIE preservation of democracy IN
America.
The address concluded sessions OF
the round table of public opinion at
the University of Virginia's Institute
Of Public Affairs.
Morley expressed conviction that
the Nations newspapers are perform
ing a great service in maintaining and
developing the critical attitude.
fDuring the past three years the
critical function in our country has
been practically carried on single
handed by the press he told his
listeners.
Critical Public Opinion.
i"As I see it, the problem is not SO
much to develop an informed public
opinion as it is to build a critical public
opinion. None of us can any longer
hope to have more than fragmentary
understanding of the world in which
WE live. We cannot be informed, ex-
cept in broad outline, on most OF the
problems of our time, but We can, and
we definitely should, develop critical
faculty which shall be instinctively
hostile to every dogmatic statement,
irfstinctively insistent on the impor-
tance Of proof for every fiat assertion
and instinctively determined to sllb-
ieet to severe cross examination every
one who either holds blindly to the
mooring ropes Of the past, or who IN
sists with equal blindness that those
ropes be cut merely because they are
noorings."
DR.. Clyde L. King. former chairman
of the Public Service Commission OF
pennsylvania, now professor Of political
science In the University Of Pennsyl-
vania, told the same group that the
mysteries Of today do not make O
democracy possible,
Students Of public life everywhere
recognise" he continued. "the DIM
cuIies inherent in the assumption;
of democracy under general manhood
suffrage when problems Of govern
nent are as dificult to understand
a. they are today: and more especially
since those problems can be made to
appear to be 50 different from what
they really are as demsgogues the
world around have been making them
appear to be during recent years,
Some Papers Biased.
public opinion must be based or
facts. Unhsppily, facts do not daily
flow unbiased through many OF our
newspapers. Many newspapers are
printed to make profits or to bring
power or prestige to their owners OF
both Every newspaper reporter
knows, as you all do, about the con-
ffict that often exists between truth
telling on the one hand and, on the
other hand, the known desires OF
those who own the papers"
Former Senator Hiram Bingham of
Connecticut visualized the Federal
Government last night as trying to
become a dictatorship, benevolent in
intention, but sure to drift into despot-
ism and increasing interference with
individual independence"
A few moments later Harold l.
Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, took
the same platform to challenge any
one, on the basis Of the actual facts
to prove that there exists in Washing
ton today either an actual or a po-
tential dictatorship"
Two Opposing Viewpoints.
Both spoke on Representative
Government versus Dictatorship"
Bingham from the Republican view
point and Ickes from that of the DEM
ocratic administration.
I'VE believe" Bingham said, that
the happiness of our people, the fu-
ture of our country and the open door
to opportunity for our youth depend on
maintaining the American system Of
constitutional government, State
rights and local self-government."
Ickes contended, on the contrary,
that life and spirit cannot take on
stature and expand in those molds
which, however well they may have
served in other times, are not suf-
fcient to meet the needs of 1886"
II do not believe" Ickes said, that
the last word in government and social
organization was written even by those
great men who subscribed their names
to the Constitution of the United
States, even admitting that what they
wrote always has been correctly in