OCR Text |
Show v THE ESPIONAGE BILL. Whoever, in time of war, in violation of regulations to be prescribed by the President, which he is hereby authorized author-ized to make and promulgate, shall collect, record, publish, pub-lish, or communicate, or attempt to elicit any information with respect to the movement, members, rescription, condition, con-dition, or disposition of any of the armed forces, ships, aircraft, or war materials of the United States, or with respect to the plans or 'conduct or supposed plans or conduct con-duct of any naval or military operations, or with respect to any works or measures undertaken for or connected with, or intended for the fortification or defense of any place, or any other information relating to the public defense de-fense calculated to be, or which might me, useful to the enemy, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or by imprisonment for not more than ten years or by such fine and imprisonment. Sub-section (c), Section Sec-tion 2, of the Espionage' bell. In preparing this section of the Espionage bill its authors au-thors gave no heed to the necessity for discrimination. They would inflict the penalties of heavy fines and long terms of imprisonment upon friend and foe alike. The newspaper or the individual who publishes or seeks to obtain information about the policies or military operations opera-tions of the Government with intent to communicate them to the enemy to his benefit and to our harm ought to be made to smart for his treason. But the newspaper or the individual who criticises or points out defects in policies and preparation with the honest purpose of promoting remedial action and warning against danger is not a public pub-lic enemy. Service of that kind is friendly service, to the Government and to the people, it is often of incolculable value. The British Government would have stuck to the ineffective shrapnel instead of substituting the powerful explosives that are now driving the Germans in terror from their trenches if the British press had not hammered ham-mered the need of high explosives into its head. It is a Prussian measure, consistently modeled upon those press laws and practices which haVe forbidden the German newspapers to tell the German people what the Government was about, or what other Governments were about, with results that were set forth with amplitude and lucidity in the President's address to the Senate the other day. To call this section of the Espionage bill high handed would imperfectly describe it. It is high handed, for under it the freedom of the press may be extinguished. But in doing that it would take away the right of the people peo-ple to know what the Government is doing, and how it i3 doing it, and it deprives the Government of the invaluable invalua-ble aid of enlightened public opinion and of the guidance of the public's not less enlightened criticism. New York Times. t |