for use and have been forced to give it space. Papers have been required to reprint articles from the official Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung and from Reventlow's jingo sheet, the Tagliche Rundschau, without being permitted to state the source of these articles. The Wolff Bureau's interpretation of certain discussions in the Austrian lower chamber in June, 1917, were adopted as standard and the papers were instructed to treat these discussions "in no other light." The people were to have only one version of the Jutland "victory," of the actual results of Zeppelin raids, of the reasons for continuing martial law, of the "voluntary Belgian deportations, of the "strategic" retirement on the Western front, of the continued severity of the Allies' blockade, and of other points equally difficult of explanation. Such poor team-work as occurred early in the war, when two versions were given out as to why Rheims cathedral was shelled, is to be avoided so far as official standardization of news can accomplish the result.

In addition to the censoring and inspiring of matter designed for the press, the Germans do not neglect a third function-namely, the "doctoring doctoring" of news. Dispatches from abroad are published only after they have undergone a process of "editing" which may take the form of the elimination of significant passages, of unfair translation, or of explanatory comment. In the case of President Wilson's war address of April 2, 1917, more than half of the text, by an actual counting of the lines, was omitted in the Wolff Bureau's version. The convincing recital of the causes which provoked us to war was curtailed and distorted, while the denunciation of Germany's system of intrigue, with the reference to the Mexican note, was dropped. The declaration that "the world must be made safe for democracy was deleted and the passage disclaiming any desire to seek selfish compensation for America's sacrifices was struck out. The blue pencil was also run through the expressions of friendship for the German people and the eloquent statement of what we are fighting for: right that is more precious than peace, democracy, the principle of self-government, the liberties of small nations, and a universal dominion of right by a concert of free peoples. An unwilling testimony has been added to the potency of the President's burning words, for the German official news-makers did not dare to let their own people read the full text of the message. The same may

be said in general of the President's note to the Pope, the German versions of which were misleading in many respects.

Even worse than "doctoring" is the downright fabrication of news. In his Belgium Under the German Eagle, Jean Massart tells of how photographs taken in Brussels were used to illustrate the German entry into Antwerp. The reported capture of this city "with its army was wholly false, as he shows, for the invaders merely seized an empty nest. When a German dirigible was wrecked in landing on the Belgian coast, the damaged machine was made to do service as a captured French airship." A view of German sailors around one of their own guns was published with the title "Belgian gun, captured and served by German sailors on the coast of the Channel." Assassinated Belgian priests have been referred to as "fallen in battle." When the French were pushing forward in the Chemin-des-Dames sector, the German versions of French official reports were so doctored as to conceal entirely the capture of certain sections of the Hindenburg line, and newspaper headlines were telling of "French Defeat in Gigantic Onslaughts." To open the way for "retaliation" by illegal war methods, the German papers have falsely charged the enemy with carrying military aviators on hospital ships, and misusing the RedCross flag. Secretary Baker's figures for the American Army have been distorted in the German press, and nonexistent strike riots in England have been described.

The Germans even extend this campaign of "PanMunchausenism (as an American editor aptly put it) to their own troops. Captured German soldiers, supplied only with official news, have disclosed the most fantastic ideas. Even as late as November, 1914, German troops in Belgium were led to believe they were in the vicinity of Paris. One of the soldiers near Roulers in Flanders, having understood that he was within eight miles of Paris, asked to be shown a place from which he might see the Eiffel Tower. News of different sorts is served on different fronts. Two sets of what purported to be the same edition of the General Anzeiger of Düsseldorf were prepared with identical dates and serial numbering, but one was intended for circulation in occupied Russia and the other in Belgium, the news matter varying according to the audience. Such tactics, according to the German theory, would hearten the troops, improve their morale, and develop a "will to victory."

It is a matter of interest to notice German quotations from the enemy press. Only those things seem to be copied which the Germans like to believe. From American papers they seize items which " prove that Washington's war policy is half-hearted, that the country is in the grip of the I. W. W., that strikes are everywhere impeding Government work, and that the Hearst propaganda is undermining the American morale. The alleged report of an American military commission testifying to the invincibility of the German position in the West is eagerly copied, and La Follette's disclosures" are represented as seriously embarrassing the Administration. German editors like to clip items about the Sinn Fein agitation and the immense number of troops that England must send to Ireland. Naturally enough they welcome indications of dissension among their foes, but in attempting to prove this they resort to the most far-fetched selection and the most unscrupulous perversion. The complaints of a United States Senator regarding financial contributions to the Allies, the alarm of France because of England's designs upon Calais, Portugal's uneasiness at British ambitions in Africa, the "inevitable" clash between Japan and England over Chinese problems, and the coming rivalry between the greatly enlarged merchant marine of the United States and that of England-these and similar items are given a wholly unmerited emphasis. In some cases if such reports were traced to their source they would be found to have originated in German propaganda. The German public, reading propaganda items planted in enemy papers and reprinted in their own, can secure only the most grossly distorted notion of Entente opinion.

A serious charge against the censorship is its one-sided character. While moderate peace advocates are suppressed, a free hand is given to the Pan-Germans to publish what they will. With an arrogant monopoly of patriotism, these men who rave at the "eternal peace twaddle," who refer to the Reichstag as "an idiot asylum," and denounce the whole parliamentary system, have organized what they call the Fatherland party," claiming for themselves alone the right to say what is German and what is patriotic (vaterländisch). Germany is supposed to be under a party truce (Burgfrieden) during the war, and the army is supposed to have no politics, but Government buildings are used as headquarters for the Fatherland party, and officers carry on an active

recruiting for the party among the soldiers, forcing the men to attend Pan-German meetings and to make contributions out of their miserable 53 pfennigs a day. Circulars are sent around among civil service employees asking them to join the Fatherland party, and the risks of refusal are so well known that the unfortunate subordinates have no choice but to join. But while all the paths of publicity among the soldiers are open to these men, the liberals are shut out. A circular, for instance, from the Social Democrats of Greater Berlin to the soldier-readers of Vorwärts was prohibited, and no socialistic propaganda whatever may be carried on among the troops.

It must not be supposed that the German people meekly submit to the censorship. Indeed, one finds in many quarters a lively opposition. Maximilian Harden has emphatically denounced a system whose underlying idea is to show the enemy that sixty-seven million human beings think exactly alike on all questions, big and little. In the Reichstag debate in 1916 regarding the abolition of the censorship, the discontent of the Social Democrats and other liberals was emphatically voiced, and a plea was made for the fulfillment of the fine promises made by the Emperor and Chancellor at the outset of the war regarding liberty and equality of rights. At that time the solemn assurance was given that the régime of martial law would be terminated as soon as mobilization was completed, but the promise has been forgotten while the military commanders have usurped more and more powers. It was complained in the Reichstag that the censorship had encroached upon all possible topics, and the withdrawal of the censoring function from military hands as well as the abolition of martial law was demanded.

Unfortunately this Reichstag attack produced no result. At various times the matter has been further agitated, and in August, 1917, a resolution was passed in the Main Committee calling for a radical alteration in the Government's policy of news-control. The military censorship based upon martial law was to be restricted to purely military matters and was not to extend to war and peace aims, to constitutional questions, nor to internal politics. The suppression of newspapers and periodicals was to take place only when military enterprises were endangered, and then only with the consent of the Chancellor and after the publisher had been heard. This resolution, though expressive of the sentiment