"DOPING" THE NEUTRALS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2954, 18 December 1916, Page 5

"DOPING" THE NEUTRALS

GLIMPSE OF GERMAN WAR NEWS . : SYSTEM ' : WEO IS KARL VAN WEIGAND In the "Daily Mail" Mr. D. T. Curtin, an eye-witness who has returned after ten months' adventurous touring iu Germany, shows how tho German Government "works" tho neutral, and particularly tho United States, Press. It has been stated that Germany during the war lias spent '£10,000,1100 <11 l'ross propaganda. . . ; In order to understand thoroughly tho importance the Germans attach to the: possibility of their, forcing the United States to intervene against England, it is necessary that I should explain, and at some length, the extraordinary measures taken by tho German Government in regard to" American' newspaper correspondents now practically'imprisoned iu. Germany. Towards the end of .1915 the American newspaper correspondents in Berlin were summoned to the Kriegs-Presse-Bureau (War Press Bureau) of the Great, Geneneral Staff. Tho official in charge, 'Major- Nicolai, notified them that tie German Government desired .their signature to an agreement respecting their luture activities in the war. It had been decide*:!, Major Nicolai stated, to allow the American journalists to visit the German fronts at more, or less regular intervals, but before this was dona it would be necessary for them to enter into certain- pledges. These were, •mainly:- . '

1. To remain in Germany for the duration, of the war, unless given special permission to leave by the German authorities.

2. To guarantee that dispatches would Tie published in the TJnit-ed States precisely as sent from Germany— that is to say, as. edited and passed by the military censorship. - 3. To supply their own headlines for their dispatches,, and to guarantee that these, and none others/ would be printed.

After labouring in vain to instruct iMajor Nicolai that with the best of on> the part of the correspondents it was beyond their power to say in exactly what form the "Omaha 'Bee" or the "New Orleans Picayune" (Would publish their "copy," the correspondents affixed their signatures to tho weird, document laid before them. It was signed without exception by all !the important correspondents permanently stationed in Berlin. Two or three who did not desire to hand $ver the control" of their personal. moreJnents to _ the German Government for Inn -unlimited number of years did not ''tnko the pledge," with the result that they were not invited to join the personally-conducted trips to the' fronts subsequently organised. Nothing that has happened in Germany so illustrates the vasaalaga to which neutral' correspondents have been reduced as .the humiliating pledges extorted from them by the German Government, as the price of remaining in Berlin for the practice ot their profession. It was undoubtedly this episode which inspired the American Ambassador, Mr. Gerard, to tell the American correspondents last summer that they would do well to obtain their freedom from the German censorship before'invoking the Embassy's good offices to break down the interference of the British censorship. ; When the Germans learned of-the rebuff which Mr. Gerard had administered to his jourlialistio compatriots the Berlin Press launched one of those violent attacks against the Ambassador toy which he has constantly been'/subject in Germany during the war. • ;

The Journalists Colony., ' ' ' Tlie American journalistic colony in Germany is very different from what it- was in pre-war days. .Before 1914 merely of..'tho. representatives.- of tlie Associated Press and Lnited Press, half a dozen New York papers (including the notorious "New :l'orkor ,fstaats-Zeitung") and !th'o ,wellknotfn and important Western journal, tho "Chicago Daily News." To-day many papers published United btates are represented in Berlin \J>y special correspondents. The influx of iicw-comers has been mostly from German-lauguago papers, printed in such -Teutonic centres as Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Milwaukee. Journals like the* "lllinoiser Staats/eitimg" of Chicago, which for- years past has barely been v able td keep its head above water, have suddenly foundthemselves affluent enough to maintain correspondents in Europe, who,' for ineir part, scorn lodgings any less pretentious than .those of the de luxe Hotel Adlon m (Inter den Linden, iuanks mainly to the 1 constant and, if Jj.° su ßg cs tj unwise quotation in llie Times," the bright particular tear in the American journalistic firmament in Berlin is Karl Heinrich von " le sau<l, the .special representative of w W ul,° rk ' Wor,d ''' ■ Th ° "New J oik .World is not pro-German, but von legand if _ 0 f direct and nobis. German origin. Apart from his admitted talents as a newspaper man, von Wiegand's Prussian v von ' is of no inconsiderable \ aluo to any newspaper which employs him. Von Wiegand, I believe, claims to be a native of California; Persons unfriendly to lim assert that ho iis really a native of Prussia who went to tho United States wflen a child. -Wherever lie was born,- voii~Wiegand is now typically American. He speaks German imperfectly, and with an unmistakable Transatlantic accent. Ho is a ■ bookseller by origin, and his littlo shop in San Francisco was wiped out by the About.forty-live yearsof Wiegand! is a man of medium buiM, conspicuously near-sighted, wears inordinately thick. "Teddy Roosevelt eyeglasses,"_and_ is ill his wholo bearing a, "real" AVesterncr of unusually affable 'personality. Von Wiegand ' claims, when taunted with being a Press agent ot the .German Government, that lie is nothing but an enterprising correspondent of tho. "New ■York World." I did not find this opinion of himself fully shared in Germany. There are. many people who will tell you that if von Wiegand is not an actual attach© of tho German Press •Bureau his "enterprise" almost always takes tile form of very effective Pressagenting for the Kaiser's cause, 110 certainly comes ana goes at all official headquarters In Germany on terms of welcomo and intimacy not approached •by the status of any other American correspondent, and is a close friend of Mio notorious.Count Hevcntlow. Hopelessly Shackled. Several of the principal American correspondents in IJerlin, including Mr. Conger and Mr. Powers, of tho Associated Press, Mr. Cyril Browne, of the "?few York Times," and! Mr. Acker, mann, of the United Press, are making a serious effort to practise independent journalism. But it is a difficult ' and alnlost hopeless struggle. They are

struggle. ii.„y are .laokled and controlled from one end' >[ the week to the other. They could lot if tliey wished send tlio unadorned 'luth to the United States. All tliey ,re permitted to report is iliafc portion )f the truth which' reflects Germany in -lie light in whlc'a it is useful for Germany to appear from time to time. Germany has organised news for uoutrals in the nitftt intricate fashion. A ncrtain kind of liews is doled out for Wig United States, a totally different kind for Spain, iand still a different brand, when emergency demands, for Switzerland, Brazil, or China. There is

a Chinese correspondent among the otlier "neutrals" in Germany. The "news" prepare 3 for him by ' Major Nicolai*s department would! be very, amusing reading in the columns of Mr. von Wiegand's.