The War Office document made observations on the influence of the press in times of war in the following fashion:
The press, powerful in peace, may become more so in war. By its editorials and presentation of news it may sway the people for or against the war, and thus stimulate recruiting and hearten and encourage the fighting forces in their work, or, by adverse criticism, may tend to destroy the efficiency of these agencies.
It may by publishing names of organizations, numbers, movements, accounts of victories or defeats, furnish information to the enemy that will enable him to deduce the strength and location and intended movements of our own troops.
By criticism of the conduct of campaigns, the action of certain officers or exploiting others, the people will be led to lose confidence in the army with the result that the moral support of the people is lost; they cry for and obtain new generals and new plans of campaign, not based on expert knowledge and thought with a consequent lengthening of the war or even defeat.
War has added greatly to our information about foreign countries. We studied their geography as we followed their armies, their history as we became interested in various regions. We have come to know of their resources, their products, their agricultural and their financial condition. Every day for more than four years, in hundreds of newspapers’ columns, we read of their statesmen, their generals, admirals, soldiers, sailors, their people, their purpose, their patriotism, and their courage. We know of their cabinets and their parliaments as never before, their industrial troubles, their petty politics as well as those larger problems that require diplomatic interference. The war brought us into a new intimacy with almost all the nations of the globe. It incubated hundreds of new problems.
It must be quite impossible for the public to appreciate the patriotic assistance and the pecuniary sacrifice of the newspapers in the war. They surrendered hundreds of pages to appeals for aid, to arousing interest, to patriotic propaganda. Let us glance at the work of a single sheet:
Mr. William H. Field of the Chicago Tribune attested (April, 1918) that at that time his newspaper was devoting fifty per cent of its space, other than advertising, to matters concerning the war. In response to the question, “What can we do to help win the war?” it was decided to serve patriotic purposes both practical and inspirational. Mr. Field said:
In the Sunday edition, fiction section, we print at least one patriotic story. The pictorial supplement contains war photographs and portraits of military leaders.
The woman’s department is devoted largely to war service. One section is given to the work of the Red Cross and especially to its needs. We give scientific and practical information about food and preach economy and conservation in cooking and urge coöperation with the Food Administrator.
We advocate the making of war gardens and give explicit directions.
We have a Camp Stories contest in which we encourage soldiers to send short stories of camp life.
We print one page of signed editorials on the war. The idea of the page is to give articles such as may be found in magazines of the caliber of the Atlantic Monthly, the Yale Review, the North American Review and the New Republic.
On the club page we have one article and picture from the Woman’s Committee of the State Council of National Defense.
Under the heading “Woman in War Time” we report the activities of the various patriotic women’s organizations.
A three or four thousand word letter of society gossip has been a feature for many years. I find in the last one fifteen hundred words devoted to the work of the Woman’s Committee on the Liberty Loan campaign, one hundred words on war talk at one of the clubs, five hundred on the entertainment of soldiers and sailors, five hundred words to the Woman’s Land Army, three hundred words on the work of women in munitions factories, five hundred to appeals for war donations from New York committees, and three hundred words on a sale of Easter cards for the benefit of the wounded. This one article, indexed as “Society Letter” is one hundred per cent war propaganda. The only feature section not contributing to war material is the comic section.
What has been true of the Chicago Tribune was true also of nearly all the important newspapers of the United States. Nothing was permitted to come before the most insignificant bit of war information. The newspapers made all news subordinate to war news. Day after day no other intelligence than war news appeared on the first page of our metropolitan sheets. With glowing patriotism they surrendered column after column to appeals for help for Belgium and for scores of other charities growing out of the war, and not in all the long years did they cease to print appeals. Through the coöperation of the newspapers millions on millions were raised before we entered the war. Then began renewed efforts to help the Red Cross, the Young Men’s Christian Association, the Knights of Columbus and kindred organizations. And in still greater patriotic endeavor the press of America urged support of the Liberty Loans and the thrift stamp movements.
The newspapers spoke for the national government. They printed the government appeals. They counted not the cost to themselves although every additional page meant hundreds if not thousands of dollars in additional expense. In no other way could the government so quickly reach the people. The President’s appeal to public sentiment, the treasury’s call for financial aid, the plans for taxation, the demands for conservation of food and resources, the thousand and one suggestions to the people were all before the people in less than twenty-four hours in every city of this broad land. Through the press, the government could almost instantly communicate its wishes to more than three-quarters of the people. Yet the attitude of the government, and especially of Congress, was that of antagonism to the press and in some directions almost of hostility.