Press Attacks in Congress.—Representative Calloway quoted in the Congressional Record of February9,1917:

Mr. Chairman, under unanimous consent, I insert in the Record at this point a statement showing the newspaper combination, which explains their activity in this matter, just discussed by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.Moore):

“In March, 1915, the J.P. Morgan interests, the steel, shipbuilding and powder interests and their subsidiary organizations, got together 12men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select the most influential newspapers in the United States and sufficient number of them to control generally the policy of the daily press of the United States.

“These 12 men worked the problem out by selecting 179newspapers, and then began, by an elimination process, to retain only those necessary for the purpose of controlling the general policy of the daily press throughout the country. They found it was only necessary to purchase the control of25 of the greatest papers. The 25papers were agreed upon; emissaries were sent to purchase the policy, national and international, of these papers; an agreement was reached; the policy of the papers was bought, to be paid for by the month; an editor was furnished to each paper to properly supervise and edit information regarding the questions of preparedness, militarism, financial policies and other things of national and international nature considered vital to the interests of the purchasers.

“This contract is in existence at the present time, and it accounts for the news columns of the daily press of the country being filled with all sorts of preparedness arguments and misrepresentations as to the present condition of the United States army and navy and the possibility and probability of the United States being attacked by foreignfoes.

“This policy also includes the suppression of everything in opposition to the wishes of the interests served. The effectiveness of this scheme has been conclusively demonstrated by the character of stuff carried in the daily press throughout the country since March, 1915. They have resorted to anything necessary, to commercialize public sentiment and sandbag the National Congress into making extravagant and wasteful appropriations for the army and navy under the false pretense that it was necessary. Their stock argument is that it is ‘patriotism.’ They are playing on every prejudice and passion of the American people.”