REVIVAL OF EDITORIAL PAGE
The war from the start did much to revive the interest in the editorial page the influence of which had declined very much in the Period of Financial Readjustment. Unfamiliar with European geography, unacquainted with the economic and political situations in the warring countries, readers found they must have the news interpreted through the editorial. The war made readers more thoughtful and the thoughtful reader has always been a reader of the editorial page. Once again American journalism found itself divided into two groups, one of which was pro-Ally, the other, pro-German, in its editorial sympathies. The editorial battles between the two developed military critics in the editorial sanctum. The entrance of America into the Great European War brought these two factors together into practically a harmonious press, with only here and there an exception to prove the general rule.
The attempt of certain newspapers, early in the war, to be strictly neutral in the publishing of the news, was rather amusing. The eighth edition of a metropolitan daily on a certain day stretched this streamer headline across the page:—
Germans Fall Like Leaves at the Battle of Ypres.
The ninth edition of the same paper on the same day bore this headline:
Allies Fall Like Leaves at the Battle of Ypres.
Could any newspaper be more neutral?
PAPER SITUATION
The increase in the cost of white paper later made space more valuable. The result was that there was a noticeable condensation of news in all departments. Special features, instead of being set in rather large type, were made to occupy a rather smaller space through a change of font, or by the omission of leads between the lines. Headlines were reduced in size; though they often stretched across the page, they were in much smaller type than during the days of the American war with Spain when, as
