Evening star., 1950-10-01
Sees Press Confl:
Used for Propaganda
White House PorIeys Serve
As Sounding Boord
By Fronk R. Kent

There are number OF favorable
things to be said of the White House
press conferences, such as the oppor-
tunity they afford for newspaper cor
respondents to come face to face with
the President and question him directly
on public affairs There are also some
not so favorable, such as the opportunity
for the President to use the press for
propaganda purposes, which the late Mr..
Roosevelt did regularly. and which Mr..
Truman has done more than once.
: The setup is such that when the Presi-
dent wants to propagandize. the cor
respondents almost automatically have
to co-operate-eveni if unwillingly. Ad-
mittedly the President and the corre-
spondents are not on equal terms at
these affairs. The President always Fas
certain definite advantages. This is AS
it should be. The Chief Executive must
keep in position to avoid being cornered
or cross-examined like chicken thief.
Nevertheless, there are times when the
presidential advantage seems to compel
the newspapermen to join in what
amounts to a deception of the people.
An example was given at the con-
ference last week. when Mr.. Truman
was asked whether he had anything to
say on the subject of the steady rise in
prices To this he replied that the sub
ject was being studied and that he was
greatly concerned" The next morning
nearly all the newspapers carried the
headlines, Truman greatly concerned
over price increases" Now, If 1t had not
been for that presidential advantage.
there were a number of pertinent ques-
tions that would have been asked Of Mr..
Truman. and the headlines would have
been altogether different.
For example. undoubtedly there were
reporters present who greatly wanted to
ask him. well, Mr.. President, If you
are so greatly concerned, why in the
world don't you do something about it?"
Other questions that might appropriately
have been asked are these: What are
you waiting for, Mr.. President?" What
is there to study, Mr.. President?" Don't
you know, Mr.. President, that increased
wages inevitably mean increased prices
and that one cannot be controlled with
out controlling the other?" Still other
questions that must have been in the
minds of the reporters are: "Mr. Presi-
dent. are you waiting for the labor
unions to get through another round Of
wage increases before clamping ceiling
on wages and prices?" "Is not delay in
this matter of control direct promo
ton of the imitation which you have
frequently warned against?" "Are you
Influenced in postponing action, Mr..
President, by the recent suggestion to
you by William Green of the American
Federation of Labor that wages be per-
mitted to rise Is per cent before any
attempt for stabilization be made?"
Yet, there were several reasons why
these questions were not asked-frst. the
President would not have answered ex-
cept to say. mo comment; second, to
have asked them would have put the
reporter in position of personal hos
tility to the President-a position few
reporters want to occupy: third, any
reporter asking such embarrassing ques-
tions would have risked personal
rebuke from the President. to which.
because of the dignity of the office, he
could not have effectively replied. The
net result was that Mr.. Truman was able
to deal with very important issue in
an extremely inadequate. not to say silly.
way-without having its inadequacy or
Stiffness properly shown up.