Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on March 25, 1946.
Why Can’t We Get Facts?
There are times when it’s a little difficult to understand just why so much misinformation should get around to confuse and worry the public. We made an observation last week about the “cosmopolitan atmosphere” in Valparaiso and about how the world is certainly getting smaller and smaller.
The next day a local mother picked up the receiver of her telephone and talked to her son in Tokyo, another proof, if any more were needed, that the farthest point on the globe can be brought to your living room in a matter of hours.
Mr. Henry W. Sauter, district manager of the Indiana Associated Telephone corporation, tells us that, to his knowledge, the call from Japan’s capital to Valparaiso was the longest circuit ever carried here, and the fact of the matter is, that unless we start contacting the moon, we can’t cover much greater distances on this old earth.
But the point is this: If GI’s can get in touch with the home folks for a conversation even though they are separated by thousands of miles, it strikes us as strange that there should be any justification for nations to flounder around in a welter of misunderstandings which seem to arise out of conflicting reports of what’s going on and what isn’t.
One explanation is that censorship is perhaps still keeping the world’s efforts for establishing a sound basis of peace hog-tied. Censorship and deliberate misrepresentation on the part of enemies of good-will.
