OCR Text |
Show a s- iii i -esaseeaa Muzzles and Muddles By Herbert Kaufman. IT is the inalienable privilege of the citizen press to stand juil over the destinies of the commonwealth, to measure the competence compe-tence of officials, to judge their performances, to urge reforms, to demand the correction of abuses and the curtailment of sumptuary power whenever and wherever an executive evinces flagrant autocracy, autoc-racy, palpable misjudgment and manifest asininity. We are tackling a decidedly professional job with a lot of amateur talent and before it's through we expect to find many i dunce in khaki. We'll fluke again and again. We'll pay fa unpreparedness at a thousand points. How can a reasonable thinker anticipate otherwise? But while we preserve our heritage of frankness frank-ness and through an ungagged journalism, keep informed of blunders blun-ders and blunderers, the pressure of public opinion will induce immediate im-mediate correction of inefficiencies and instant demotion of ineffi-cients. ineffi-cients. We are all under order? today, but we have not relhv quished our right to give orders INTELLIGENTLY. No censor shall cancel the nation's franchise to censure its servants. We shall remain unmuddlcd while unmuzzled. Copyright, 1917, by Herbert Kaufman. Great Britain and all ether rights reiarvel |