SHIFTING LIGHT

In the current issues of two weeklies there are charges that in two countries which during the past year have been the scenes of American interest, trouble has still been going on without benefit of publicity. The Nation, always a trouble-maker, quotes first Mr. Frank Stimson, President Coolidge's representative in Nicaragua, as reporting to his chief on the fourteenth of May that the insurrection in that troubled country was ended; and follows with a list of casualties since that date in the continued fighting between the Marines and the natives; fighting which however necessary, has been all but completely ignored except for the briefest of dispatches.

In the Commonweal is quoted an article by Mr. Francis McCullough, whose charges are more serious. He says that the public has never known the whole truth about Calles' treatment of lives and property in Mexico--a treatment which according to him is headline news of the first importance. He does not substantiate his charges against the Mexican government, but contents himself with assuring the reader that the facts have been and are being concealed. The correspondent of an American newspaper is prevented, in his opinion, both by Mexican interference and by the unwillingness of his paper to publish anything else, from sending anything but colorless dispatches.

It is not necessary, without positive proof, to blame hidden influences for the silence of the press in such a case. Mr. McCullough--granting that his opinion on Mexican affairs may carry weight--does not make sufficient allowance for the nature of a modern newspaper. Marvellous, in its completeness and accuracy, as the spotlight of publicity may be, it shifts, like all spotlights from one part of the stage to another, leaving now Nicaragua, now Mexico, now Ohina in total darkness after a brief if brilliant illumination. History however goes on being made in the dark. Such charges are a challenge to journalism to prove that no important news is being withheld or minimized because the public is tired of the subject, or to find that news and bring it to light.