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Show A FREE PRESS AND A FREE PEOPLE, AN UNBEATABLE TEAM -By-DEAN KENNETH E. OLSEN Medill School Of Journalism, Northwestern University The Italian People had no heart for this war. They were dragged into it by a ruthless, ambitious dictator. But to bend the nation to his will this dictator dic-tator first had to take from his people their most precious right a free press. As early as 1922 Mussolini Mus-solini began destroying newspapers which dared oppose him. By 1925 his control of the Italian press was complete. Italians probably did not realize what they had lost. But soon they found that all their other individual rights were dependent upon this right. Once the press, representing" the voice of the people against government oppression, had been stilled they found that freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, all personal liberties had gone with that key freedom. Now they were lied to, browbeaten, made slaves of a dictatorial state. Today in abject defeat, their country torn in battle between their oppressors and their deliverers, Italians are probably the unhappiest people in the world. To most Americans this right of a free press is something we just take for granted. We "cuss" our newspapers as we "cuss" the weather and figure that freedom of press is just something that publishers publish-ers rant about. But freedom of the press is not a special privilege bestowed as a divine right on American Ameri-can publishers. They are but the trustees of a right that belongs to the whole people the right of every American to know of those happenings hap-penings which may affect his welfare. Our founding fathers had had bitter experience with a tyrranical government rule which suppressed sup-pressed colonial papers that dared speak for the people. peo-ple. They knew that their new experiment in democracy democ-racy could succeed only if there was a free press which could inform the people and warn them whenever when-ever their rights were threatened. And they wrote that right into the constitution as an inalienable right of the American people. For 160 years this free American press printing facts and reflecting the thinking of the people, daring to oppose government leaders wherever, necessary has given the American people the information which has enabled them to act in their best interests. The purpose of National Newspaper Week is not to laud the American press but to stop for this once each year to reflect on this right which has enabled en-abled our democracy to endure and which has made our nation great and strong. Today the American people know more of what is going on in their own country and on every battle front than do the people of any other oth-er nation. And they are strong in that knowledge know-ledge for they know what they are fighting for. A free press and a free people'are an unbeatable team. |