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Show GEORGE CREEL IS MISUNDERSTOOD. No paper in the west Is fairer in its lateral criticism 'than the Butte Miner, Min-er, but on Monday the editorial department depart-ment denounced George Creel without with-out full justification. The editorial follows: It seems that George Creel, head of the governmental information infor-mation department, brought into existence by the war, has been severely se-verely criticised in congress. He is accused of having made a most peculiarly inopportune and unapproprlate statement to this effect: ef-fect: "I will be proud to my dying day that my country was inadequately prepared when it entered the conflict. con-flict. To hare been prepared would have given the lie to everything we ourselves believed in and our self-avowed position before the world." If he made the statements attributed at-tributed to him regarding this nation's na-tion's status of preparation before we entered the war, then Mr. Creel should be given a most emphatic em-phatic call-down if not entirely replaced re-placed by some one who does not harbor any such ridiculous no- If Mr. Creel were in private life today and said that, he would be lambasted from one end of the nation na-tion to the other as a flagrant specimen of pacifist an exponent of a pacifilsm that might have worked this nation Irreparable harm had it not been so severely frowned on by Americans generally. gener-ally. Mr. CreeJ is a little too deep in his reasoning for the Butte Miner. The noted writer is proud of the fact that when the American nation was made to show its hands in April, 1917, no hidden dagger was revealed. America is proud of that fact, Just as Great Britain points with pride to that nation's na-tion's unpreparedness in August, 1914, as evidence that the British did not plan to bring on the world's war. If, while America was professing to be a neutral nation and to be openly opposed op-posed to interfering in the affairs of Europe, this country had armed to the teeth, there would have been a doubt created as to the sincerity of thia nation, na-tion, and then the pro-German could have said, with much corroborative evidence, that America was false in all its diplomacy with Germany. Even as things are, the Germans 'charge President Wilson with having deliberately delib-erately labored to bring the United States into the war. As does Great Britain, we can point to our unprepuredness, as irrefutable proof that America did not resort to double-dealing, did not show treachery, treach-ery, did not want war. For that we all can be thankful, however great may be the price eventually to be paid for our honesty of purpose and frank conduc' |