POWER OF PRESS DIMINISHED

Oswald Garrison Villard '93, editor of "The Nation," who has just returned from a four and one-half months' trip to France, Switzerland, and Germany, in an interview in New York, stated that nothing had impressed him more than the growing dissatisfaction with the press.

"The frequent suppression of the newspapers by foreign governments was responsible for many of the disorders arising from the revolutionary movements," said Mr. Villard. "It is certainly most discouraging that the minute the revolutionists get into power they imitate the very sins of their predecessors in regard to newspapers, and on precisely the same ground: that they must see to it that the truth shall be printed. But these socialistic reformers are just as certain that this truth must be read through their colored spectacles as were the governments which have come to such an inglorious end.

"There can be no doubt, however, that the prestige of the daily press has suffered everywhere because of the war. In my judgment, enough lying has been done by the American press about the war to last for a hundred years, and this is not the normal misrepresentation due to human fallibility and the exigencies of news-gathering. Of course, the governments must bear the largest share of the blame for this newspaper lying, for their censorship's, established avowedly for the purpose of preventing military facts of value from falling into the hands of the enemy, speedily degenerated into deliberate suppression or deliberate propaganda. The worst offenders in this respect have been the English, but our own government in the person of the intolerant, arrogant, and incompetent Mr. Burleson has made a record that Americans would be heartily ashamed of if they knew it.

"As a result of the concealment of the secret treaties by our allies. America went into the war without any real knowledge of the diplomatic situation abroad, and the allied cause is now paying for that suppression by the split at the Peace Conference. The Fiume question and the newly discovered secret pact between Japan and China are illustrations of how the press has been injured since the war began by the censorship and by government concealment of news. Never again will it speak with the authority it once had and this is the more regrettable because of the gravity of the new issues confronting all the nations of Europe and of the world. With the red flag flying on more than half the public buildings of Europe, there never was as much need of a free, fearless, and independent press as today."