President and Press

I

IT has been repeatedly charged of late that the press of the country has become commercialized out of all independence of thought and spirit. It is alleged that the tingle for circulation and the itch for an ever greater prosperity have pretty well paralyzed its critical faculties. It is asserted that the newspapers are to-day largely standardized, money-making machines, whose rich owners are so intent on the increase in advertising lineage and so tickled over the Mellon tax reduction on the higher bracket incomes that the only real political emotion they have left is the fear that the situation may be disturbed. Hence their general disposition to soften all criticism of the Administration and to treat as dangerous and degraded fellows those who grow excited over corruption in politics such as has been revealed in Pennsylvania and Illinois, who were outraged by the thieveries of the former Administration, or who are critical of the feebleness and complacent incompetency at times apparent in this Administration.

Perhaps this is too sweeping an indictment. Unquestionably there are a few great papers in which still throb sound journalistic souls and which, in spite of huge profits, retain their virility and fighting hearts. But in the main the charge is true and every posted person knows it. Logically it would seem that political supineness could most be expected from newspapers that operate at a loss, and that complete financial security would be accompanied by real political independence and fearlessness. It would seem reasonable to think that the finest reward of financial success in the newspaper business would be the luxury of being able to afford fearless and frank political criticism. It does not, however, work out that way. On the contrary, with few exceptions, it is the papers that make money literally by the cartload that seem the most sluggish and the smuggest, the least concerned about newspaper standards, the most indifferent to the dignity of their profession, the most narrow in their conception of the function of the press, the most deeply steeped in partisanship.

Take as an example the Chicago Tribune’s treatment of Governor Smith’s reply to the Open Letter of Charles C. Marshall which appeared in the April issue of the Atlantic. Here was obviously the most vital and pregnant piece of political news that had occurred in many months. Interest in it was intense. It was without parallel in our political history and, from whatever angle viewed, must have been recognized as big news. Yet the Tribune, which modestly refers to itself as the World’s Greatest Newspaper, cut the Smith statement from four thousand to four hundred words and printed it on an inside page with no editorial comment.

That is a hard thing to get around, but in these days there are plenty of instances of this sort, which seem to argue not only a lack of fundamental fairness but an absence of any feeling of obligation to print the news. However, it is the meek acquiescence of the press as a whole in the rebukes delivered and the restrictions imposed upon it by the present occupant of the White House that to my mind, better than anything else, evidences its lack of spirit and the absence of self-respect. Perhaps those are harsh words, but there seems some justification for them.

II

Take for instance the state to which the biweekly White House conferences between the correspondents and the President have been reduced. The theory of these conferences is that they are occasions on which the press, representing all shades of opinion, may ask questions of the President and receive, if not answers, at least the courtesy of a reply that the President has nothing publicly to say on that subject. That theory is now in the discard. The Coolidge rules have made it absurd. The correspondents may not say that they saw the President. They may not quote the President. They may not say that an official spokesman said what the President said. The information or views he gives out are supposed to be presented to the public without any indication of official responsibility. The correspondents are supposed to present these views as if they had dropped from heaven, and are wholly unprotected when, as has happened, Mr. Coolidge finds it expedient to repudiate them. As a climax the correspondents are forbidden to mention that a question asked at the conference was ignored. In effect these conferences are now reduced to occasions when Mr. Coolidge secretly tells an obedient press what he would like to have printed about himself — and that is all that is printed. The newspapers, through their acquiescence, have become little more than the personal publicity machine of Mr. Coolidge.

An argument can be made that, after all, these conferences are Mr. Coolidge’s show and he is entitled to make the rules. If the newspapers resent being imposed upon they have their remedy in refusal to attend the conferences, but that would be equivalent to a rebuke to the President of the United States, from which they not unnaturally shrink. There is and has been much murmuring among the correspondents, but it is plain, first, that there is little nourishment for them in an individual or personal dispute with the President of the United States. All the weight is on his side. Second, the mere routine White House appointment news is of such value and interest that, unless all refrained from attendance, none can afford to. In the matter of these conferences Mr. Coolidge unquestionably has the whip hand, and most unquestionably he has used it in a way he would not have been able to do if the newspapers were more sensitive as to their status and more spirited in its defense. What Mr. Coolidge has done is to take advantage of the solidity with which he is supported by the press to deprive it of reasonable freedom in reporting him and reduce its representatives to the status of involuntary and — in some cases — very reluctant press agents. Most of them take it without a whimper.

But he has gone further and put his small foot down on a press prerogative infinitely more vital to the press and to the people than the right to deal with him on approximately equal terms in the press conferences. Four times now has he expressed the view in effect that the newspapers have no right to criticize the Administration in matters of foreign policy, and evidenced his resentment over such criticism. Three of these occasions were at the aforementioned conferences with the Washington correspondents; one was in a public speech at New York, delivered at a dinner given by the United Press.

If there is a parallel to this I have not been able to find it. If any other President or any other public man in America has assumed a similar attitude no one has pointed it out. All Presidents have of course resented criticism of their foreign policies, but all Presidents have had such criticism — almost all of them much more than Mr. Coolidge has had. None, so far as can be recalled, looked upon peacetime press support of Administration policies in all foreign affairs as a patriotic duty. The first and until now the last time that note was struck in this country was one hundred and thirty years ago in the Alien and Sedition Acts of the Adams Administration, and these as much as anything else contributed to the defeat and ultimate destruction of the Federalist Party. With the country at peace, the Coolidge suggestion of the ‘duty’ of the press to support Administration foreign policies is perfectly preposterous. The only thing more amazing than that this proposition should be seriously and repeatedly advanced by a President whose caution is so generally marked is the meekness with which the American newspapers, the freedom of which is a constitutional foundation stone, have accepted it. Some with Democratic tendencies did express indignation when the suggestion was first made. Several pointed out the silliness of the idea. One in polite but pointed language told Mr. Coolidge he was ridiculous. But for the most part they gulped and swallowed it. The trueblue, thick-and-thin Administration organs, which are the majority, actually upheld him and wrote scathing editorials rebuking the few journalistic recalcitrants who had assailed the State Department’s Nicaraguan policy.

The first time Mr. Coolidge dwelt on the duty of the press as he sees it, and rebuked it for criticism of the Administration, was on September 18, 1925, in connection with the foreign debts. On that day at one of the White House conferences he expressed the view that ‘the press of the country should resolve all doubts concerning the French ability to fund its $4,000,000,000 war debt to this country in favor of the United States.’ We find Washington dispatches further reporting as follows: ’In connection with the French debt, the President thinks the press of the country ought to assume the duty of looking after the interests of its own country rather than the interests of a foreign country.’ A day later — on September 19 — the United Press sent out the following: ‘The White House will watch the newspapers closely the next few days to judge the reaction to President Coolidge’s suggestion that the American press look after the interests of the United States rather than those of France in dealing with the settlement of the French debt.’ If words mean anything, these passages mean that Mr. Coolidge regarded it as a patriotic obligation of the press to support his debt-refunding policy; that, whether or not they agreed with him, they had no business openly to criticize his Administration when dealing with foreign affairs; that such criticism is a handicap to the Administration when dealing with foreign countries; that such criticism is personally resented by him. Having made plain his feeling, he proposed to check up to see which newspapers continued to offend and which mended their ways. That in effect is what he said on that occasion.

The second time Mr. Coolidge lectured the press on this subject was on December 31, 1926. On that occasion, more curtly and emphatically than before, hie expressed his displeasure over the criticisms of Mr. Kellogg and the State Department that had appeared in reference to Nicaragua and Mexico. The dispatches say that ‘Mr. Coolidge, through the White House Spokesman, let it be known that he keenly resented the unfavorable newspaper reaction to the State Department’s conduct of the Nicaragua matter and that he thought it the duty of the American press not to question the wisdom of the measures that have been taken by this Government.’

One friendly and inspired correspondent wrote: ‘President Coolidge, it was said at the White House, feels that the American press can be of great helpfulness to the Administration in the conduct of its foreign affairs. The press, he believes, should present the American attitude and endeavor to convince its readers that the Administration is conducting its foreign affairs in such a way that this Government will live in accordance with international law, observe international customs, and maintain the highest standards of international relationship.’

Another writer of high standing, reporting this second lecture, said: ‘Not only the people of this country, but foreign peoples and foreign governments, are quite often misled by what is printed in American papers, in the opinion of the President. From articles in American newspapers criticizing the conduct of America’s international relations, other peoples get the idea that the people of the United States are not united, while, in the mind of Mr. Coolidge, there is no division here. Mr. Coolidge doubts that anyone would oppose the protection of American citizens and American interests, yet, he thinks, this impression is being conveyed by criticisms of the methods that are being employed to effect such protection. Not only is the conduct of diplomatic relations being hampered by a questioning press, as the President sees it, but diplomatic relations are suffering also as the result of talkative Americans abroad.’

Early in April, again at a White House conference of the correspondents, Mr. Coolidge returned to this idea of his about the duty of the press to support the Administration, this time deploring the tendency of the newspapers to ‘speculate’ on the attitude of this Government or the attitude of other Governments with which we come into contact, and contending that it would be much better if they said nothing at all concerning such things as the situation in China, for example, until official statements are made by the State Department.

And then finally, on April 25, 1927, in an address at the twentieth anniversary dinner of the United Press Association in New York, Mr. Coolidge made the feature of his speech a rebuke to the newspaper critics of his foreign policy. He deplored the disposition of newspapers and periodicals to criticize a foreign policy of their Government, once it has been fixed, or to criticize the people of friendly nations, thereby ‘ producing the reaction of a rankling bitterness abroad.’ He asserted it as his belief that the press should not engage in what he described as ‘malicious and misleading partisan attacks on the conduct of our Government’ in the Government’s efforts to defend American rights, peacefully to adjust differences with other nations, and to maintain the national dignity. Such criticism, he added, is quoted in the press of an ‘offending nation’; it furnishes ‘ammunition for our adversaries’; it ‘attacks our forces in the rear’ and becomes the chief reliance of opposing negotiators in maintaining their position ‘when all other arguments have been answered.’ This castigation of the critical press preceded the President’s outline of his policy and purposes in dealing with the Mexican, Nicaraguan, and Chinese problems.

III

That is the record on this subject, and it is submitted that there is no parallel to it. It seems absurd, of course, to liken Mr. Coolidge to Mussolini. Two more utterly different types hardly exist. Yet their views on the value of liberty of the press and liberty of speech are apparently not far apart, and it would be possible easily to make a very striking parallel between the abject subservience of the Italian press to the Duce and the subservience which Mr. Coolidge desires of the American press to our Government’s conduct of foreign affairs — a subservience that, if yielded, logically would lead to like subservience in domestic affairs.

The newspapers of the land should stand behind him and his Secretary of State, says the President. Otherwise false impressions of our official motives are given to observers and statesmen in other lands, and sometimes encouragement is given to interests abroad to resist the policies of our Government. It is quite possible that domestic criticism of our Government’s policies may now and again create false impressions of our official motives, and may also now and again encourage resistance to our policies, precisely as domestic criticism of Britain’s or France’s or Germany’s foreign policy may have regrettable consequences here. But it is incredible that it should be necessary to argue with the President of the United States the elementary proposition that this is a trivial danger in comparison with the danger of suppression of free speech and open criticism, and that in any event it is a risk that is demanded in the name of freedom and justice.

It is quite certain that it would not be necessary to argue that proposition, settled as it is both by reason and by experience, with the head of the government in any other land making pretension to genuine democracy. The government is the people’s. Moreover, the people are called upon from time to time to support foreign policy with their property and their blood. To say that a self-governing people may not freely criticize, in print or in speech, the formulation of policies involving such possible sacrifices is preposterous. Official and unofficial apologists and spokesmen for the President in explaining his lectures to the press on this subject assert that what Mr. Coolidge really wants is not censorship, but merely fairness; that he does not expect to escape criticism, but naturally desires to avoid being misrepresented by the newspapers and particularly desires to avoid misrepresentation in connection with his foreign policy, because there press misrepresentation can be most mischievous and far-reaching.

This is what Mr. Coolidge’s journalistic explainers say that he meant, but it is not in the least what Mr. Coolidge said. Nor is it what Mr. Coolidge meant, and well they know it. Any President is clearly within his rights in resenting misrepresentation, but Mr. Coolidge has not been misrepresented by the press and has at no time made any claim that he has. In the clearest, curtest, and most pointed language, and with a degree of acerbity that left no doubt of his feeling, he has repeatedly expressed his belief that it is a duty of the press to support the Administration’s foreign policy. He does not accuse the press of unfairness or misrepresentation, but of lack of support, which is a totally different thing. A sound argument might perhaps be made for the idea that such support is a patriotic duty of the press in time of war. In time of peace such an argument will not hold water for a moment. It leaks like a sieve, and so far as known this is the only White House occupant to advance seriously such a view. Every President has, of course, resented criticism of his foreign policy, and of his domestic policies as well, but if has not apparently occurred to any of Mr. Coolidge’s predecessors that it was a matter of moral duty for the newspapers to accept the President’s policy as right; or, if they could not do that, that then the patriotic thing for them to do was to refrain from pointing out its flaws. The more you think of it the more absurd it is, and the more you wonder why the newspapers have with so much meekness and so few protests permitted him to lay down this proposition with so much regularity, consistency, and solemnity that unquestionably there has been created a quite general popular idea that the President was reluctantly compelled to administer a well-merited rebuke to the newspapers which have been hampering him in dealing with Mexico and Nicaragua. Why should n’t the people get that impression? He says so, and the newspapers, publicly spanked, repeat his words and with a few exceptions concede their soundness either by editorial eulogies or by silent acquiescence.

It is a curious, a unique, situation. American history shows no period in which the press of the country seemed more spiritless, less inclined to defend its so-called ‘rights,’ more willing to accept an unmerited, uncalled-for reprimand that puts it in a false and not pleasant position, more ready patronizingly to ridicule those who allow themselves to get stirred up over such treatment.

But imagine if you can the indignant and piercing howls that would have gone up from the newspapers had the late Woodrow Wilson enunciated any such view as this as to the duty of the press to support him. Recall if you can the attitude of the bulk of the press toward the Wilson policies during the Paris Peace Conference and during the League of Nations fight in the Senate later. Recall particularly the bitter ferocity of the attacks made on Mr. Wilson by the papers of Mr. Coolidge’s party. Consider the black fury of these papers had Mr. Wilson asserted again and again, privately and publicly, that it was all right for them to differ with him on domestic issues, but in the matter of the League of Nations his was the responsibility and theirs the duty of unquestioning support. How they would have hooted him! Contrast what Mr. Wilson went through, in the shape of press criticism of his foreign policy, with the trivial nature of the Coolidge criticism. I venture to say that in neither the domestic nor the foreign field has any President in this generation had as little as Mr. Coolidge — few have had less since the beginning. He has now, and has had since the day he first entered the White House as President, a most amazing newspaper support. No President in my time has had anything approaching it in solidarity and unshakable nature. Fully four fifths of the press bow to him as the totem pole of prosperity.

In the last decade the mortality among Democratic papers, always in the minority outside of the South, has been vastly larger than among Republican. In every merger or consolidation it is the Republican paper in strong financial hands that invariably survives, the Democratic paper that always disappears. This accounts for a certain part of the unprecedented press support of the Administration. The Mellon tax bill accounts for more. Just how to account for the Hearst support I do not know. I have, of course, heard the current explanations and they may be true. In any event, the fact is that Mr. Coolidge is the first President in more than a quarter of a century in whose back the thirty-fiveodd Hearst papers have not had their talons deeply sunk. Add to the string of Hearst papers the straight-out Republican organs and the lukewarm, supposedly Democratic ones that have been anæsthetized by prosperity and tax reduction, and there are not so many left. As a matter of fact CoolidgeKellogg criticism on Nicaragua and Mexico has been largely carried on by the two New York weeklies, the New Republic and the Nation. Not more than half a dozen daily newspapers have been even mildly critical. The chief of these is the New York World, and it is believed it was largely of the World that Mr. Coolidge complained. Certainly no other New York, and no Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland, Kansas City, Detroit, Denver, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, or San Francisco paper has differed with Mr. Coolidge to any considerable degree on either domestic or foreign policy. Except from the World in New York, the Sun in Baltimore, the Post-Dispatch in St. Louis, the criticism which Mr. Coolidge maintains has handicapped his Administration in his dealings with foreign countries seems to be almost nonexistent. More than four fifths of the press did their duty as he sees it. The truth seems to be that Mr. Coolidge has reached a point where nothing short of five fifths really satisfies him. It often happens that way. Here is a sensible and normal man who until a few years ago was accustomed to taking political orders and being treated more or less indifferently, at times even contemptuously, by the party leaders in his State. Accident made him Vice President, and the hand of God put him in the White House. For four years he has been steadily fed by his journalistic supporters on a heavy diet of laudation, encomium, eulogies, panegyrics, and praise. It would be remarkable indeed if this did not change the man, if it did not permeate and take possession of him. I wish to be fair. Adulation does not swell his head. Mr. Coolidge’s head is hard. Until Mr. Harding died he had had practically no press praise at all. He did not seek it. Now, after four years of it, he is convinced that he is entitled to praise, and that when the press fails to accord praise it fails in its duty. It is, if one looks back over his previous career, contrasts it with the past four years, and understands his personal characteristics and type, easy not only to see how he reached his present frame of mind toward the press but to appreciate that it was almost inevitable. It is, if he can continue to get away with these solemn lectures without real protest, all right for Mr. Coolidge; but what of the press?

What of the press? It is a curious situation. By excessive praise the press builds Mr. Coolidge up to a point where support appears to him not a favor but a duty. He then publicly reprimands it as a whole for the dereliction of a few, indicates his belief that it should play a subservient and not an independent part in politics, and the newspapers for the most part humbly transmit his rebuke to the people, thus misrepresenting not the President but themselves. The thing would be ludicrous if it had not its serious side.