LAST DITCH OF DEMOCRACY - Majority Rights

#88 (May 18, 1943) U.S.(D3)
ECONOMIC OPPRESSION
I am going on with my comment of Sumner Welles’ speech at Toledo. As
I said last time, I think Mr. Welles’ view of Europe is a bit out of date. I
suffer under similar difficulties when I try to focus America. I have
protested against the interruption of communications. I wish more
Americans had been hard-headed enough to stay over here in Europe
and try to speak to America. I wish that during the twenty and more sad
years that followed the Versailles Treaty more Americans had had the
patience to learn what was going on in Europe, instead of which, even
the better class of journalists were told to HOLD down, hold down on
even the rather superficial stuff they usually sent you, let alone on the
stuff deliberately colored to suit the real or supposed prejudice of the
American newspaper readers.
Now Italy was an open book. I have seen violently prejudiced partisans
come to Italy and be much disappointed at not finding food for their
polemics. Very few impartial witnesses visited these shores, or at any
rate very few who made use of the pen and the typewriter. Serious
correspondents, in particular one English correspondent of a highly
esteemed British paper, now extinct, complained of the way his reports
were doctored. He said to me: “I have to watch every sentence. If they
find a single phrase that they can twist or cut out and use as a headline,
they do it.”
American views of Europe have, I think none of you will deny it—that
is, you won’t deny it if you stop and think over it—American views of
Europe have been influenced, if not colandered thru British newsprint,
and British magazine or weekly paper publications. Germany invited the
young to come over. Various people went into Germany and tried to
report on factors of German life OTHER than those which Mr. Welles
brought into his foreground. After the first flush of pure idealism, days of
John Read and Linc Steffens, Russia notably ceased to invite careful