Evening star., 1940-04-22
BY the Associated Press.

y
agree with me that there are none
to whom we more joyfully do honor
than the representatives of the staff
of the Associated Press here today
and through them to all those others
spread over the globe. many of them
in positions of personal danger and
physical hardship, but all of them
In posts of great responsibility and
trust, that our newspapers, and
through us the public of this coun-
try and of an widening portion
of the world. may daily have the
simple TRUTH
Mr.. Mclean, who also is president
OF the Bulletin Co., which publishes
the Philadelphia Bulletin, then in
troduced Kent Cooper, general man.
ager of the Associated Press, whom
he described as 'the commanding
general of these forces"
Mr.. Cooper said that for the first
time the members, instead of listen
ing to an outside speaker, were going
to hear from the staff of the Asso-
ciated Press
Il need not remind you" he con-
tinued, "of what at once is glorious
reportorial opportunity, but a heavy
risk. The wholesale devasta-
tion of fortified and unfortiied re-
glons had left no place of reasonable
safety for the war correspondent
tabled in story, who worked at a
safe distance from shot and shell.
So the war correspondent
of yesteryear has disappeared. In
his place is the modern, active news
reporter in the field.
I'VE have some reporters here
who happen to be temporarily back
from the wars No greater
honor could be bestowed on me than
in thus being allowed to point with
pride today to the work they are
doing at their posts, and personally
to introduce to you those who are
here now
Werner Predicts Great Hatred.
The first correspondent introduced
by Mr.. Cooper was Mr.. Werner,
whose experience on the news front
ranges from Hollywood to Moscow.
He went abroad in 1929. Mr.. Cooper
described him as chief without a
bureau, since the Germans have
told us we cannot have any staff in
German-occupied territory except at
Berlin"
Mr.. Werner predicted: "If war in
the air comes to Europe in the con-
centrated form we experienced in
Finland, and lasts as much as two
years, a great hatred will sweep the
civilian population of Europe, and it
will not be hatred of the enemy. It
Will be hatred Of the machinery of
the war"
He blamed the civilian death toll
in air raids in Finland not on delib-
crate intent of the Russians, but on
the fact that bombing planes have
got so large as no longer to be very
accurate.
"Bombers seldom hit their target
until they have hit everything else
in the neighborhood, he said.
Censored dispatches from Finland
naturally were top-heavy with dam
age to schools and hospitals, with
casualties among civilians rather
than among soldiers.
Bombing Plane Blunderbuss.
Yet I honestly believe the boil
sheviks were not deliberately trying
to bomb civilians. I honestly doubt
whether any belligerent in the pres
ent war will deliberately aim to kill
civilians in an air raid. Bombs are
expensive and civilian life is cheap
the truth is, I fear, that the
average bombing plane is blunder-
buss and the bigger the plane the
greater the margin of error 49,.
The war we are now watching
from great distance is a very big
war So big that we have scarcely
begun to realize it's scope or even
dimly dream its colossal ultimate
consequences.
"It is war so big that the great
belligerents have found it difficult
to get at each other; war so fan
tastic that some of the fiercest
fighting has been between neutrals-
the great neutral Russia and the
tiny neutral Finland"
Mr.. Stark, whose work has been
in London, told of the difficulties
with British censorship.
For example, he said, the Admiralty
announced at a press conference one
day that it needed 10000 more fisher
men to man trawlers.
The Cautious British.
"Our story was held up" Mr.. Stark
said. II argued with the censor, ex-
planned it was an Admiralty an
nouncement, but he said he hadn t
been notified so he would have to
check. A little later he said he
could release the story if we changed
it slightly.
Instead of saying the Admiralty
today called for 10000 more fisher
men we must say the Admiralty
may possibly require 10000 more
fishermen BY this time, thoroughly
exasperated, I suggested he might
at least leave out the possibly as
superf1uous. But he even refused
to do this.
$50 I told him to let the story
go with his revision. Later he
called. full of apology, to say he
had been in error: that the ad-
mlralty really had issued an ap-
peal"
Mr.. Mcdaniel said that while
hostihtles in Europe had taken the
news spotlight from the Orient, the
war IN the Far East hasn't really
begun yet"
MTha o,,s,esi,a.