A Mouthful

Before the American Newspaper Publishers' Association in Manhattan, U. S. Senator David A. Reed of Pennsylvania said a few forceful words:

"Among us politicians the quack and the trickster still flourish and the printed word is their most powerful weapon. Would that you (the publishers) adopt some schedule rates for such political advertising and would decline to publish the appeal of the liar and charlatan. Close your columns to the claptrap and buncombe of the politicians. Scorn our words when you know that we are uttering falsehoods, just as you scorn the dishonest advertiser.

"If the politician preaches sanity he lacks 'news value,' and the printed word is not his to help, but if he defies common sense and preaches the impossible, the printing press is his willing slave.

"Should I prove, by the direct evidence of righteous men, that some prominent citizen is an honest, faithful patriot, no printing press is so mean as to condescend to print it. But should I call a train robber to testify to hearsay that robs a dead man of his honor old Gutenberg immediately hands me his largest, blackest headline type.

"Should we preach that we cannot eat our cake and have it too, no man may listen and no type repeats. But should we pretend to want tax reduction and at the same time advocate the bonus, the increase of pensions, the German relief appropriation, the rise of Government salaries and the $100,000,000 grant to the wheat farmer, the printed word takes up the refrain at once and the impossible seems possible because it is printed."