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Show A SHAMEFUL STORY. IH That was a fearful statement wired from H Washington last week in which Mr. Heath stated I M that in the campaign of 189G the bureau at Re- j'tfl publican headquarters supplied twelve thousand t publications with material which they in turn LH put out through their own columns to sway pub- lie opinion. H The matter was of course supplied by hired lM writers, it went to the world as the opinions of IflH editors. fil When presented millions of people throughout HH the country read the articles and gave them local H significance everywhere. In every school district w men read and probably each knowing personally fl the editor in his immediate neighborhood read I the articles as their own editor's opinions. rgi Behind all this was an inexhaustible cam- jfl paign fund supplied by the great money-loaning jfM contingent in every state. Could a more effective I JH plan to pervert public opinion be devised? 'H The politicians were not to blame for the rules I that apply in war apply in politics. To seize strat- 1 egetic positions, to lay ambuscades; to feint at W one point when the intention is to strike at an- & other, to mask batteries, to out-flank the enemy jyfl all these devices are permissible. But what of the 'WM editors who will further such schemes. Their jiH work is not honest warfare; it is poisoning the pH wells of a country, it is displaying false signals ' H to lure innocent merchant ships on a breaker, H beaten coast, that the ships may be stranded and Tooted. .H |