of credit in the hands of three great banks, and the control of small banks by the big ones—and anyone who appreciates the dependence of the more powerful organs of the press upon the dominant business interests of the communities which they serve, and especially upon the banks—will understand how a large fraction of the press is easily induced to assist in any course of publicity medicine which Wall Street decides shall be administered to the country.
Has word gone out from Wall Street to raise a concerted outcry against Mexico, as a means to manufacturing a public opinion that will lend itself to intervention?
An indictment of the American press in general is a serious matter. Unfortunately, in the present instance the indictment is easily sustainable. I do not consider that the mere demand for intervention is of itself sufficient to establish the conspiracy charge. The indictment rests, rather, upon the dissemination of statements known to be false.
In other words, if the current attacks upon Mexico are well substantiated and the suggested remedy justifiable, then the conspiracy charge must fall. But if they are built upon falsehood we have a conspiracy, and of a most sinister character. Either intervention is a defensible policy or it is not. If it is defensible, the demand for it does not need to be supported by lies. If, on the other hand, the intervention propaganda is found to consist largely of misinformation, then the interventionists and their cause stand self-convicted at the very start.
3.
INTERVENTIONIST LIES
Many of the reports that are employed to bolster up the interventionist cause are not immediately capable of proof or disproof, but enough of them are to establish the fact that the foundations of the interventionist structure is worm-eaten with falsehood.
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