Tros Tyriusque mihi nullo discrimine agetur NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW AUGUST, 1918 "CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM" "To attain ideals, you must at times smash idols."NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. BY THE EDITOR We have never yet known a public official who did not profess to welcome honest criticism and we cannot recall one who did not resent it when applied to his own activities. Formerly objection was made commonly to its presumed “injustice and unfairness," but of late it has fallen under the ban of those most directly concerned as lacking in suggestion which might point the way to improvement. To be acceptable nowadays, particularly to those members of our present Administration who are unduly sensitive or admittedly incompetent, or both, criticism must be not only "just and fair," but "constructive, not destructive," they themselves, of course, being vested with the right of discriminative judg ment. Perhaps we should add immediately that we have not our Chief Magistrate in mind in this connection. Long ago he declared plainly that he could "imagine no greater disservice" than" to deny to the people of a free republic like our own their indisputable prerogatives, and he added that "while exercising the great powers of the office I hold, I would regret in the crisis like the one through which we are now passing to lose the benefit of patriotic and intelligent criticism. So far as we have been able to judge from afar, although with sight as yet undimmed, he has maintained this attitude with a steadiness, even a serenity, which must be remarked as truly noteworthy, a circumstance, we are bound to say, as fortunate for the country as it obviously is Copyright, 1918, by NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW CORPORATION. All Rights Reserved. VOL. CCVIII.-NO. 753 11 creditable to the individual, since never before perhaps in our history has a true perspective been so highly desirable as an attribute of a Chief Executive. It is not, then, the President, but his underlings, or such of them as feel that, because they breathe what they have come to regard as the atmosphere of sacrosanctitude, they, too, can do no wrong, to whom we would make reference, designed to be at least helpful and even stimulating to their respective spirits. Inevitably the most glowing example of inept smartness to occur to one's mind is afforded by Mr. George Creel because, not only of the many ridiculous statements which have dropped from his careless tongue like unripe peas from an overcharged pod, but also because his was the first grave offense. It is not his famous “elaboration" of the report of Admiral Gleaves a year or more ago, reprehensible and shocking though it was, that now concerns us; it is the attitude which he promptly and indignantly assumed respecting what he had done. It will be recalled that, immediately upon the publication of Mr. Creel's fabrication, the Associated Press in Washington received a message from one of its correspondents in England giving as the official view at the base of the United States flotilla that no such remarkable happening as he had depicted had taken place. The Associated Press meekly withdrew the dispatch by request of the Navy Department, but too late to prevent its publication in a number of newspapers. Whereupon Mr. Creel, while forced to admit that he had "elaborated" the Admiral's report, which, incidentally has not been printed to this day, violently denounced the correspondent for telling the truth. We quote from the World of July 6, 1917: "I am going over to the Navy Department and advise Secretary Daniels to pay no attention whatever to these nasty reports from this unpatriotic man," Mr. Creel said with much warmth. "Nothing that has happened since the war began has aroused the patriotism of the American people as much as this Fourth of July announcement," he continued, in referring to the version of the submarine attack written by himself. "If everything that this country does during the war is to be subjected to attack by nasty newspapers we might as well begin right here to put an end to the discussion by paying no attention to them." 'Why not confound the author of this report by printing the text of the official announcement from Admiral Gleaves?" Mr. Creel was asked. "The nasty papers would even try to discredit that if we were to publish it," said Mr. Creel, his warmth waxing. "If we begin to pub lish official reports the Germans would know just where the attack was made and repulsed and then they would know where the transports rendezvoused." Passing as mere evidence of immaturity and cranial enlargement the diverting appellation applied to American public journals, we find that Mr. Creel's justification of his conduct rested upon two grounds,-first, that he was warranted in deceiving the people for the purpose of arousing their patriotism and, secondly, that the publication of the facts might give to the enemy information of which necessarily they were already in possession. "If everything that this country does during the war is to be attacked," has now the familiar ring of many subsequent utterances, which have served to cloak doubtful practices, but it was novel at the time and may rightfully be regarded as the original declaration of a policy which has since undergone somewhat drastic treatment and seems now to be in a fair way to a complete cure if the inherent tendency of the head of the War Department can finally be overcome. That Mr. Creel should have referred to himself as the country can hardly be regarded as a mere inadvertence, in the light of his later matured assumptions of the position of "the Government," but the error has since become so common on the part of some of his nominal superiors that its significance long ago ceased to be unique or even peculiar. How far or in what direction Mr. Creel's energetic ego might have projected the country, the Government and himself if he had not overstepped all bounds by speaking of the halls of legislation as slums we shall never know; suffice it for the nonce to say that when he appeared before the Congress and quoted quite pathetically, although in less euphonious phrase "Don't view me with a critic's eye, But pass my imperfections by; Large streams from little fountains flow, all was forgiven and he was put upon an allowance of $1,600,000 a year, greatly, we suspect, to the relief of the President, who hitherto had been obliged to provide, from his own special fund, food and clothing and movie tickets to Mr. Creel and his whole tribe. We may, we think, safely leave Mr. Creel, for at least a week, to thank God that his master has never been fully prepared at a psychological moment to administer the punishment which he has so richly deserved. As an exemplar, however, we must hold Mr. Creel to a strict accountability. But for the success, by way of personal advertisement, of his adventure into the field of fiction in translating official reports, it is most improbable that the Secretary of War would have imposed upon constructive critics the burden of re-establishing honesty as an admirable public policy. There is, too, little doubt that it is to Mr. Creel's original and nimble mind that Mr. Baker is indebted for his own sense of immunity to disapprobation, not merely of his official activities, but also of the conduct of allied public journals. As an illustration of the generous amplitude of his views in this connection, we may cite his comment upon the involuntary resignation of Dr. James A. B. Scherer, President of the Throop College of Technology and Chief Field Agent of the Council of National Defense. It will be recalled that Dr. Scherer became dissatisfied long ago with the attitude of the newspapers controlled by Mr. William Randolph Hearst toward the war and was accustomed to express his convictions with notable frankness and exceptional vigor. The circumstances which induced him to resign from the Council of National Defense were set forth by Dr. Scherer himself in a comprehensive letter to Mr. Baker in which he said he had received a visit from Mr. F. W. Kellogg of the San Francisco Call, who urged him to desist from attacking Mr. Hearst because, at the solicitation of " a member of the Cabinet," Mr. Hearst had become "good"; that "since the Hearst papers now support the Administration, they are therefore wholly loyal to our cause," and "that Roosevelt should be condemned rather than Hearst, seeing that the latter supports the Administration while the former frequently criticizes it." Dr. Scherer concluded as follows: The next day I was officially informed that Mr. Kellogg had called at the War Office, and that when the Administration has decided on a policy everybody connected therewith must abide by it. What this policy is I already knew. For I am not the only offender. Another representative of the council at these recent war conferences has been complained of in a telegram from a Hearst agent for speaking (far less. frequently and more mildly than I have done) in warning the people against the Hearst influence, and I had seen your memorandum, Mr. Secretary, attached to this telegram, instructing speakers that hereafter they must not indulge in discriminatory remarks as to the relative values of newspapers. This was officially sent to me, with the request |