Salt Lake Tribune | 1917-06-24 | Page 35 | Switzerland Faces Difficult Problem

SWITZERLAND FACES DIFFICULT PROBLEM Nation Is Being Sorely Tried in Its Efforts to Maintain Neutrality. PRESS IS THE CAUSE Francophile and Germano-phile Germano-phile Newspapers Are Stirring Up Trouble. BERNE, Switzerland, June 12 (correspondence (corre-spondence of Associated Press. It is doubtful whether any country in or out of the war, whether under the iron hand J of the censor or not, and whether pro-rilly pro-rilly or pro-German in il s sympathies, has as peculiar and conglomerated a problem as Switzerland with its newspapers news-papers in three languages. A strong under-current of patriotism, a, thorough-going conviction that, whatever what-ever the rights and wrongs of the war bo or where they may He, the duty of the Swiss newspapers is first and foremost fore-most to Switzerland- has, thus far, tended to restrain them from dividing irretrievably into two camps. This has been especially true of the older and more conservative papers, both those printed in German and those in French. 33ut the upcropping of Germauophile or Francophile journals, many of them war mushrooms, has been a strain not only on Swiss neutrality, but on the inner peace and good temper of the country. Comprises Four Groups. The Swiss press can be divided into four groups. The first consists of the old-time, conservative papers, both French and German, whicli have striven striv-en desperately to be neutral. The second sec-ond class embraces many of the Francophile Fran-cophile papers published in western Switzerland. They are frankly anti-German, anti-German, and campaign against the enemies en-emies of France. The third class includes the Germauophile Germau-ophile papers, many in number, though small in influence, which outdo the pan-German papers of Germany in their bitterness, especially against America, and which operate along the well-known German psychological lines when trying to influence public opinion. opin-ion. That is to say, they metaphorically metaphor-ically produce tho effect of a bull in a china shop when attempting to plead the German cause, chiefly because they try to jam pro-German arguments and the justice of the German cause down their readers' throats. j Violently Anti-German. i The fourth class comprises the Socialist So-cialist papers of Switzerland, which are violently anti-German, anti-Swiss, nil Li-French and, in general, anti-ev-erything. The Francophile! papers are much gentler in their anti-Germanism than are the Germauophile papers in their antv-enltentetsm. All the papers are normally at. least bound to print the war reports of both sides, but the French language papers conduct their anti-German work by cleverly written headlines that tend to cast doubt on the truth of the German reports, and that generally are teemiug with sarcasm, sar-casm, often pood-natured. Tho Germanophile papers, on the contrary most of them are German-owned German-owned or subsidized employ a heavy, ponderous stylo of attack. Their editorials ed-itorials are generally bitter, and as often as not are full of misinformation. Neutrality Holy Word. To the credit of the majority of the Swiss be it said that they and this includes in-cludes a majority of the German-ppeaking German-ppeaking Swiss havn a hea rty contempt con-tempt for both ' ' phile ' ' types, especially espe-cially the Germanophile. Neutrality is almost a holy word in I Switzerland; certainly a word to con- jure with. Tn no other phase of the public life of the country does it come more nearly being, violated than! through a portion of the press. An- j other, unfortunately smaller portion numerically, upholds neutrality as j staunchly as the Swiss army or government.