The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, May 13, 1918, Page 9

in isqu - The Parallel Cases of George Creel of the United States Committee on Public Information, and A. C. Townley, President of the Nonpartisan League Readers of the Leader should not miss the following account of how two men in the pub- lic eye have been damned for words they never uttered. It throws light on the methods of the American press. The first is the story of Creel and the second the story of Townley. —THE EDITOR. § The Creel Canard YOU read a newspaper, you B Creel, chairman of the United States committee on public in- formation, made the following statement recently in a public speech: “I shall be glad to my dying day that America was unprepared for this war.” Near- ly every newspaper in the country quoted Mr. Creel to that effect. BUT GEORGE CREEL NEVER SAID IT. He said something entirely different. Now this alleged quotation was considered “good stuff” in most newspaper offices. It was so con- sidered because these papers were fighting Presi- dent Wilson and his administration and Creel is a Wilson appointee. The alleged quotation furnished a means to strike at the president through Creel. ~ It was of even more value to some newspapers, because Creel is a liberal. He is one of the small group of liberal thinkers with which the president has surrounded himself. If papers fighting the president or opposed to Creel’s economic ideas could make a monkey out of him because of some- thing. Creel himself said, it would be just the thing. So they seized onto these words, which were her- alded as Creel’s throughout the country. Thousands of papers waxed witty, sarcastic or indignant over the alleged fact that Creel made this statement. SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES GOT UP IN CONGRESS AND LAMBASTED CREEL FOR A FOOL OR A TRAITOR BECAUSE HE MADE THIS ALLEGED STATEMENT. Now, either some reporter on a paper who opposed Creel and Wilson intentionally distorted Creel’s words to suit the owner of the paper, or else some reporter had a very serious misunder- standing of what Creel said. Whichever was the case, the effect was the same, for the press of the entire nation seized on the misquotation and sowed it far and wide. To his dying day Creel will be confronted with this mis- quotation and discredited in the eyes of thousands of people for something he did not-say. David Lawrence, a noted Washing- ton (D. C.) correspondent, whose work is syndicated to newspapers probably think that George' 'Following are five quoted throughout the “That’s quite a different thing, of course, from what Mr. Creel was quoted as saying. Senator Borah, in a speech supporting the war resolution a year ago, said virtually the same thing. Whether America should or should not have prepared for war with Germany is one thing, but the historical fact that America trusted Germany so long and did not prepare for war is quite another. That fact, together with the unpreparedness of France and Great Britain, proves that the free nations of the world were not seeking war, but had it forced upon them by the autocracy that had for decades prepared for war.” That is the story of the Creel canard. It is given here merely as the introduction of a parallel case, that of Mr. Townley of the Nonpartisan league, which follows: The Townley Canard C. TOWNLEY.made a speaking tour through North Dakota a year ago, soon after the United States entered the war. He spoke on the conscription of wealth as a means of raising war revenue and on other eco- nomic phases of the war. His first speeches were at Devils Lake, Williston and Minot. NO STENOGRAPHER WAS PRESENT AT THESE SPEECHES, BUT THE DAILY PAPERS THAT WERE FIGHTING THE LEAGUE HAD REPORTERS PRESENT. The result was that Mr. Townley’s words were grossly misquoted—in fact, it was impossible for Mr. Townley and others who had been present at these meetings to recognize the quotations that appeared in the hostile newspapers as remotely related to anything that had been said. The papers had at that time just opened their attempt to prove the farmers’ organization disloyal, and they were altering the news freely to suit their purposes. When he found what the enemy press was doing, Mr. Townley immediately secured a stenographer, and never since has he uttered a word in public without a stenographer pres- ent. But there is more to this story. After these three meetings, Mr. Townley next spoke at Valley City, N. D., during the same tour. Townley Never Said These Things paragraphs which have been widely United States and credited to A. C. This time there was a stenographer present, BUT THE PRESS DIDN'T KNOW IT. THE SAME ATTEMPT WAS MADE TO MISREPRESENT THE VALLEY CITY MEETING AS HAD BEEN MADE TO MISREPRESENT THE OTHER THREE! Among the papers that distorted Mr. Townley’s words at Valley City was the Fargo Forum. When this garbled account appeared, Mr. Townley had the proof of what he said to deny it. The Fargo morning paper, the Courier-News, pub- lished a full stenographic report of the Valley City speech and challenged the Forum to prove what it had printed as a quotation from the speech. The Courier-News called the Forum a deliberate falsifier, AND THE FORUM TO THIS DAY HAS NEVER REPLIED TO THIS CHALLENGE. It couldn’t. The Courier-News had the stenographic report! . Then a very significant thing happened. Mr. Townley continued his tour and made several other speeches immediately after the Valiey City incident. BUT FROM THAT DAY TO THIS MR. TOWNLEY HAS NEVER BEEN MISQUOTED BY THE PRESS. The papers know now that every word Mr. Townley says in public is taken down by a stenographer. That was a year ago. Since then Mr. Town- ley’s only bodyguard has been a stenographer. At the time of the first press reports of the Devils Lake, Williston and Minot speeches, Mr. Townley - IMMEDIATELY ISSUED DENIALS, BACKED UP BY NUMBERS OF PERSONS WHO AT- TENDED THE MEETINGS. THESE DENIALS WERE MADE AT THE TIME, ON THE GROUND. TEEY ARE OF RECORD. BUT, DESPITE THESE FACTS, THE ORIG- INAL MISQUOTATIONS OF TOWNLEY’S SPEECHES AT THE THREE TOWNS WHERE HE HAD NO STENOGRAPHER ARE BEING REHASHED EVERY DAY SOMEWHERE IN THE UNITED STATES. Whenever and wherever somebody wants to attack Mr. Townley or the League these misquotations are dug up and used. Some of them appear accompanying this article. THEY ARE ABSOLUTELY FALSE QUOTA- TIONS. MR. TOWNLEY NEVER SAID IT. These misquotations of three original war speech- es of the League president usually appear in one or all of the five forms which are quoted in full with this article in the accompanying “box.” The ex- planation of that is interesting also. Enemy papers in North Dakota of course sent these misquotations to papers in other states for which they corresponded. One enterpris- ing reporter on one of these papers in North Dakota wrote articles for the Twin City papers about these Townley meetings. HE Townley, president of the National Nonpartisan lea, Iti h d ’ ; : gue. It is iht:g::il:o:: :i‘: &'a“r’;'gh:s ore the | alleged these things were said by Townley early in 1917, over people by stating the facts about what a year ago, in North Dakota, in public speeches. Each para- Creel said. However, scores of news- graph is supposed to be from a different speech. TOWNLEY papers which printed the first report of Creel’'s words and editorially at- “tacked him for it, have failed or re- fused to print Lawrence’s true report. THE BIG POINT IS THAT CREEL HAD NO. STENOGRAPHER PRES- ENT WHEN. HE IS ALLEGED TO HAVE MADE THIS STATEMENT. The papers therefore have felt safe in publishing the misquotation and refusing to correct it. Mr. Lawrence, in the Washington Times, explains the incident as follows: j “Mr. Creel was quoted as saying he ‘would be ‘glad to his dying day that America was unprepared for this war.” What he actually said, accord- ing to his own version, was a familiar argument which, indeed, will not be ignored by historians when they come to write of the justice of America’s cause. For the head of the commit- tee on public information claims that he said he was glad no man could raise his voice in this country and say -~ with truth that America started this war, that America wanted this war or that America had any selfish object in going to war, For what better proof could there be of America’s dis- inclination to go to war than her own unpreparedness for war. \ \ . 'across to fight!” NEVE_R SAID ANY OF THESE THINGS. They are garbled quotations. In one form or another these quotations have been pashe_d and rehashed for over a year by the enemy press. There Is an interesting story connected with these alleged quotations of Mr. Townley. Read it on this page. Following are the paragraphs alleged to be Townley’s words, none of which he ever uttered: “This is a rich man’s war.” “The nation demands that you give yourself and your sons and your brothers and your husbands and your sweethearts to be taken across the seas and spill their life’s blood on the field of Europe, and then comes to you and asks you te subscribe for Liberty bonds to pay the ex- penses of the war. This is the injustice of the war and the manner in which officials of the administration are carrying it into effect.” “The flower of the young manhood of this nation is going across the water to bleed, as we are told, for the honor of our country, but it needs some effort for me to believe that these yeung men are going to fight for the freedom of democracy. I believe and fear they are going to bleed for the prefits of the damned pirates who profit from our food and food products.” . “Why should we buy Liberty bonds when the government makes us pay enormeus profits for equipment to run our farms? Take the profits of big business to pay the war. We'll never get anything from the gov- ernment for anything we do in this struggle. Why should we help the government if they won’t help us?” : “This is wrong, all wrong. I say to you that measure is anything but patriotic because it takes the heart out of those boys going across the waters to fight our battle, knowing that when they get back they must pay for it. When they get back! Some cost for the boys who go COMPILED THE MISQUOTATIONS FROM ALL THREE OF THESE SPEECHES FROM SEVERAL ENE- MY PAPERS INTO ONE ARTICLE. That article carried the quotations as they are reproduced here, and that is the form in which they have mostly been peddled throughout the country. The Nonpartisan Leader at the time, and repeatedly since, has nailed these quotations of Mr. Townley as false. Once more we do it with a complete explanation of all the facts. And yet, in 10 years from now, if the League’s loyalty is still attacked, these same misquotations will be dragged out as “p g Read these misquotations carefully. Watch for them. They are being printed and reprinted every day. Be ready to nail them. THEY ARE AL- LEGED TO BE FROM THE ONLY SPEECHES SINCE THE WAR STARTED MADE BY TOWNLEY WHEN HE DIDN'T HAVE X STEN- OGRAPHER PRESENT. Why do they not quote the last four or five speeches made by Mr. Townley on that same tour, or some of the scores of speeches made by Mr. Townley during the year since then? The rea- son is plain. THEY CAN NOT GAR- BLE A SPEECH WHICH HAS BEEN TAKEN DOWN BY A STENOG- RAPHER. % tation—A Trick = LRSI A