THE HEARST MENACE.

As moulders of public opinion, as forums for the discussion of public question, as well as purveyors of news, the great newspapers of the country have repeatedly demonstrated the power of the press for good in the community and in the nation. It is when this power is unrighteously wielded, when it is prostituted to the ignoble purpose of fomenting class hatred and international suspicion, that it becomes a menace. This is the situation which now confronts us as a result of utterances of what Philip Gibbs has called America's "gutter press."

Any action by Great Britain today is misinterpreted by Hearst to suit his own ends. A dinner at which Viscount Grey and Herbert Hoover were alleged to have been present was pointed out as an example of the interference of England in American politics. The proposed auction of the interned German liners afforded a convenient pretext for illustrating how America was attempting to sacrifice her ships to swell the British naval reserve. Each of the situations alleged to exist have been shown to be entirely fictitious. On the ethical principle that an implied lie is no less a lie than a similar assertion, the newspapers controlled by William Randolph Hearst are imbued with the spirit of falsehood.

Pro-Germanism constituted a menace; we met and we conquered it. Bolshevism is a menace; we are meeting it and we shall conquer it. More subtle and insidious, and hence more dangerous; more clever and more alluring, and hence more elusive, is the menace of Hearstism; we shall meet it, and we must conquer it.