Evening star., 1941-12-21
Axis Near East Dutch
Press No Longer Wholly Free
Under War Censorship Order
Disagreement OH Types of Information That Will
Aid Enemy Sure to Be Source of
Frequent misunderstanding
By Blair BoHes.

One day last week President Roose-
Velt made speech about the glories of
the Bill of Rights. Two days later he
appointed national censor, whose busi-
ness 1t is to infringe on. the Bill of
Rights guarantee of freedom of the
press. Nobody protested. War Is para
doxical, and we accept the idea that even
In war fought to protect the system
Of which the Bill Of Rights is part.
tree publication of information must be
restricted
"All Americans hate censorship as
much as they do war;" President Roose-
velt said when he announced that Byron
Price, executive editor of the Associated
Press, was the wartime director of CEN
sorship. and he probably was right. One
Of our proud national boasts is that our
people enjoy q freer flow Of information
through newspapers, radio and maga-
zines than any people In the world. But
wide freedom of information already is
= casualty Of war.
Our own history In the first World War
and the experience Of Great Britain in
this war serve to throw some light on
what we can expect in the way Of censor
ship. One thing that is certain to come
out Of the censorship arrangement is a
inner battle between the press
and the Government over what should
be censored and what should not.
Source Of Irritation.
Mr.. Price has been on the job here
since Friday. THE only news that
should be kept secret is news that will
aid our enemies" he says, and there lies
the crux of the whole censorship battle.
No one ever agrees completely on all
the types Of information that will aid
our enemies. In dispute over this ques-
ton the British Ministry of Information
has three times been reorganized during
the war, which is less than three years
old. Before the French surrendered,
Paris newspapers used to appear with
large blank spaces where the editors had
planned to print news that the censor
would not permit.
We already had censorship of out
going and incoming cable and wireless
communications before the appointment
Of Mr.. Price as super international CEN
sor The Navy Department is in charge
of the outgoing and incoming censor
ship, and already its red-tape slowness
has resulted in 24-hour holdup of a
message in Spanish to the Buenos Aires
Nacion, a newspaper favorably disposed
toward the United States. The slowness
with which censorship operates is a
source of irritation wherever censorship
operates.
The President indicated, however, that
our wartime censorship will be aimed at
controlling the fountains of news rather
than the manner in which newspapers
handle the news. A system of that sort
makes it unlikely that all dispatches to
papers and all broadcasts over the radio
will have to be submitted to a scissors
and pencil official before the papers
print the dispatches or the radio stations
send out their broadcasts. The Nazi
policy with regard to correspondents
writing for newspapers outside Germany
has been to suggest limits beyond which
the correspondents should not go and
to let the writer's act as their own CEN
sors.
Emotional Factors at Work.
This semblance of voluntary censor
ship prevailed here during the first
World War, when George Creel, chief OF
the Committee on Public Information,
was the chief censor in fact if not in
name. Mr.. Creel, who recently wrote
a magazine article in which he aired
his view that his mission had been q
failure, had to work in a time where
powerful emotional factors were at work
to cry outrage" against the publication
not only of information but of opinions
which then were looked upon as sub
versive and disloyal but which now we
have learned to accept as commonplace
MANY public men and many of our
prominent newspapers who have always
bitterly fought socialism, the I. w. Ws
and even labor unions" Mr.. Creel was
told during the war, "are taking ad-
vantage of the present crisis in an effort
not purely patriotic to squelch all of
those more or less radical organizations
without regard to the effect upon the
future Of our country, to say nothing of
the effect in the present war
Even newspapers, then, have been
guilty in the past of trying to censor
opinion and information.
Congress Toned 1t Down.
The statutory instrument of censor
ship in the World War was the Espion-
age Act, which, upon its introduction
into Congress, contained stringent CEN
sorsnip provisions providing for life i'm
prisonment for whoever during the wal
without lawful authority should collect
record, publish or communicate" mill
tary information, which was broadly de-
fined. Congress toned down the bill
but the press never welcomed it, and g
figure now familiar on the American
scene, Fiorella H. La Guardia, was one
Of the members of Congress who re-
manned skeptical of the acts value until
the last.
The final wording Of the Espionage
Act on the censorship question for the
other war was found in section 3, which
said:
whoever, when the United States Il
at war, shall wilfully make or convey
false reports or false statements with
intent to interfere with the operation OF
nf <y1A {%o,-x
Of the United States or to promote the
success Of its enemies; and whoever
when the United States is at war, shall