PROPAGANDA, Feb. 7.
President Coolidge's address at the dedication of the National Press Club in Washington will, of course, not bring joy to the numerous propagandists who inhabit the United States or who send highly coloured news reports from various parts of the world to the United States. The President has definitely challenge fitful creature, the who in dark and, gives a completely false impression of world events. As President Coolidge rightfully says the "candour of the sit-nation would greatly increase if their foreign connections were publicly disclosed." But then they would lose their jobs. It is not to, be expected that men and organizations who thrive entirely upon their secret and sinister association with jpropaganda of various natures will disclose their connections, for then they might just as' well hand in their resignations.
We wonder whether President Coolige had in mind the news that goes to the United States from hina. So much of it during the past year or two has been on the borderline between half truth and whole falsehood that it would not be at all startling to learn that the President has, in the past, often wondered whether the reports he read regarding China were honourable and accurate or whether some of the reporters to whom Michael Borodin was little less than a Prophet and Eugene Chen, a national hero, were alone correct in their surveys and estimates of men and events here, There have been men and women who breezed through China with surprising rapidity and who managed to fill magazines and newspapers with trash that could not have had its origin in even a misunderstanding of the facts. It would be inaccurate to suggest that these stories have not had their effect upon public opinion: they have been most effective and if China had spent millions in propaganda, which.is more than doubtful, the results would. not have been different, Every person suffering from some private phobia let loose columns and columns of libellous stuff, which one had to ignore, Jest the stress of conditions, waste.of time and energy, denying such vilifieations asthe one about Dr. Williams of the Nanking University approaching the Hunanese troops, revolver in hand! That was but.one sample of yards of mis-statements, inaccurate apprisals, rumours and sheer untruths, It would only be fair to note that: Ameriean pressmen are alive: to the mere amateurs, attempting to break into print because there was a sensational situation and the newspapers wanted "copy" on China, But it has been unfortunate for the Chinese that they permitted themselves to be exploited in this way, for when'the American public found that so many discreditable reports had been sent from China, they lost interest in the subject, declined to read anything from China and put the whole business down to propaganda, No foreign Power, no foreign interest, was hurt as much as China and the aspire tions of the Chinese. The backward swing of the pendulum caused China's interests in the United States to suffer, and now even lecturers dressed in mandarin gowns offer no attraction to a surfeited public. Corruption of the press as of individuals, is very difficult to prove. The corrupter seldom is willing to come forward unless he himself has some disreputable reason for doing so, and there are never any witnesses. 'The newspaper-therefore, who accepts gratuities, who' somehow. finds Irimself with a little extra money in his pocket for having favoured one side or another, is fairly safe. But as President Coolidge said:—
The spirit of mankind was more and and more demanding that government and society should be conducted under the laws of truth; these who for got that precept were bound for a moral explosion."
Whether it is provable or not, the corruption will out and there are always tales of men having asked for and having received gratuities from Chinese officials, Many such accounts are positively false, and in gration proves them to be tals Some must be true, because on the face of it, the individual bears every imprint of being someone's "runtting dog." "That, undoubtedly is the type of man to whom the American President referred. He has the law with him; to accuse him would be to invite a libel suit; his complicity in propaganda can never be proved; but so far as all men are concerned, he is "bound for 'a moral explosion, The Press is undoubtedly the mightiest weapon in modern society, It can achieve tremend-fous good; It can make for enormous mischief. It is the usual means by which most of mankind receives its information and much of its-education. It is, the only avenue for the masses in any modern state to acquaint, themselves with their governors and with the problems which confront them, Those who create this press are generally young men at the beginning of their careers, Few of them have stakes in property or any per~ sonal vested interest in the preservation of the particular so-city in which they find themselves. They are, generally speaking, unaffected by selfish motives and choose a profession which offers few opportunities for advancement and few rewards in wealth and prestige, because they like the profession or as Americans call it, it, the game. Among the large. numbers of decent, honourable men who enter such an important profession, there will naturally be some few who cannot understand that their responsibilities preclude the possibility of accepting gratuities or of serving any individual, any parly or any nation as a secret propagandist,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.