"I find myself Chairman of our Corps Committee for no great reason that
I can discover save my being the oldest American resident here
interested in its work; at the same time that if I render a scrap of
help by putting on record my joy even in the rather ineffectual
connection so far as 'doing' anything is concerned, I needn't say how
welcome you are to my testimony. What I mainly seem to grasp, I should
say, is that in regard to testifying at all unlimitedly by the aid of
the newspapers, I have to reckon with a certain awkwardness in our
position. Here comes up, you see, the question of our reconciling a
rather indispensable degree of reserve as to the detail of our activity
with the general American demand for publicity at any price. There are
ways in which the close presence of war challenges the whole claim for
publicity; and I need hardly say that this general claim has been
challenged, practically, by the present horrific complexity of things at
the front, as neither the Allies themselves nor watching neutrals have
ever seen it challenged before. The American public is, of course,
little used to not being able to hear, and hear as an absolute right,
about anything that the press may suggest that it ought to hear about;
so that nothing may be said ever to happen anywhere that it doesn't
count on having reported to it, hot and hot, as the phrase is, several
times a day.
Pages:
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361