The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1937-09-27
We Don't Like to Talk
About War

Those people who like to think that the world is per
feet even if it isn't sometimes ask us: "Why do you
write so much about the possibility of another war!
~, 49,, OIL, If you didn't talk SO much about it,
there wouldn't be any war" This
"' N7'0 is cheerful but false. theory, also
held by some optimsts where crime is concerned They
would have you believe that if the newspapers shut
their eyes tightly and refused to chronicle the anti
social dongs of the socalled human race, crime would
automatically fade away.
War and crime suppose, close y related.
The first is magnfied and legalized form of the
second Both of them appeal to a violent strain in
-,., - mankind; subcOnscious heritage
n".~, T Of lawessness and rule by force
that dates from the when
lived in caves and wooed by the club. It would be
foolish to deny that the public likes to read about
and crime. They satisfy vcariousy the savagery that
we all have inherited. We keep that savagery in the
back of the closet, but it is there, just the same.
Occasionally a criminal with better than average
L O. will announce that he committed his crime be-
cause he read about similar case in his favorite news
un,.1 paper. The goo-goos then
>, proudly say: "You see? If
the newspapers didn't print
crime news, he wouldn't have had that terrible idea
and he never would have committed that crime"
This is bunk. Men don It commit crimes because they
read about them in newspapers If they read the
papers conscentiously, they would violate the
x. n.. law. For practically every crime
C:..E.. c~1y that is chronicled in the papers is,
at one time or another solved. The
criminal goes away to prisoner to the electric chair
It could be just well argued that newspapers prevent
crime by telling how criminals are punished That we
also believe, is bunk. That's why you buy it. The
minute the newspaper begins deciding what's good for
you to read, and what's bad you'll stop buying that
newspaper and turn to livelier with inhbi-
lions.
The same thing applies to war and the possibility of
war; It pleasure for us to print those dscouragng
dispatches from Shanghai, from Tokyo from Madrid
20. ~. o,.~ Berlin. We'd much rather
49,, ~ have the readers finish the
papers with happy inner glow
and feeling like Browning's Pippa: Goods in His
Heaven; all's ri ght with the world" But we'd be
traitors to readers and traitors to our country if we
suppressed all the dispatches and filled in the
blank space with something innocuous.
Readers who had no idea of Japan's military
ments, of Gemany's saberratling and Francois sub
marine warfare would be inclined to turn thumbs down
on program of national defense. They would reason
logically, that if the world were peaceful why should
they be taxed for bigger navy bigger army7
For better or for worse living in a democracy.
In democracy the people themselves must decide the
most delicate questions of foreign relations. Not by
Peonzo Tbomeoy,,os actual participation, but by
Mvet Do.;do electing the men who will de-
eide whether we are to 90 into
war or stay out, whether to have an adequate
national Defense at all In order to make these
decisions the people have to be informed It's our lob
to inform them.
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