Chicago on its way to Russia, and that it was given. Your Washington correspondent cannot tell us the name of the man that answered the telephone, nor have I been able to discover it myself. I do not doubt for a minute that the call was made, but the fact remains that it was not until a full week after the Root incident that this Committee commenced its day and night reference service. At the time we were about ten days old and trying to get offices.
4. The facts regarding the landing of the first contingent of the Pershing expedition are few and simple. The War Department had requested that no announcement of any kind be made until the arrival in port of the last troop-ship. The Associated Press released the news from its New York office. This was done without the consent or knowledge of this Committee or of the War Department.
Our first intimation was a telephone-call from the United Press, stating the action of the Associated Press, and informing us that the United Press felt itself released from its word, and was sending the news out over its own wires. I told the United Press manager that the War Department still insisted upon secrecy, and he straightway issued a bulletin asking a "kill."
I called up the Associated Press at once, and was informed that the story had been released from the New York office an hour before, that it was "on the street," and that a "kill" was impossible. I then telephoned the United Press that it was at liberty to disregard my request for the "kill." I have no apology whatever to make for this honest attempt to protect good faith.
5. With regard to Secretary Daniels's statement of encounter with submarines, any doubt you may have had as of its accuracy should have been dispelled by a careful reading of your own paper. In the same issue that carried your article on censorship there appeared a front-page story that told of two separate attacks by submarines, making the claim that two U-boats were sunk. If you should be worried again as to the truth of Secretary Daniels's statement, I would urge you to read your own vivid, convincing narrative.
So much, then, for what you term "hodge-podge official handling of information." In view of my explanations, will you still insist that we are to blame for the "hodge-podge"? But if all that you allege were true, if we had been guilty of the blunders that you charge, what of it?
26
