From the press to the censorship was but a step. I objected to the
English method as having lost us our perspective on the war.
"You allow anything to go through the censor's office that is not
considered dangerous or too explicit," I said. "False reports go
through on an equality with true ones. How can America know what to
believe?"
It was suggested by some one that the only way to make the censorship
more elastic, while retaining its usefulness in protecting military
secrets and movements, was to establish such a censorship at the
front, where it is easier to know what news would be harmful to give
out and what may be printed with safety.
I mentioned what a high official of the admiralty had said to me about
the censorship--that it was "an infernal nuisance, but necessary."
"But it is not true that messages are misleadingly changed in
transmission," said one of the officers at the table.
I had seen the head of the press-censorship bureau, and was able to
repeat what he had said--that where the cutting out of certain phrases
endangered the sense of a message, the words "and" or "the" were
occasionally added, that the sense might be kept clear, but that no
other additions or changes of meaning were ever made.
Luncheon was over. We went into the library, and there, consulting the
map, Colonel Fitzgerald and General Huguet discussed where I might go
that afternoon.
Pages:
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300