The editor, having excluded his own opinions from his news columns, opens his news columns to Mr. Harding's or Mr. Hughes's opinions, giving no guide to the reader whether he is printing fact or opinion, and, if obviously opinion, as to whose opinion it is. The rule is, nothing but news in the news column. The news is, "Mr. Harding said so and so." But what is printed is, "so and so is a fact" or, "so and so the paper believes on unimpeachable authority to be a fact." This official control of news columns goes further. Not only, according to the rules, must the source of certain information be regarded as a confidence but essential facts themselves may not be disclosed. One of the most remarkable uses of the news columns to create public opinion was that of Attorney-General Palmer whose several announcements of red revolution in the United States startled the country two years ago. A series of sensational plots was described. Very soon every intelligent correspondent felt sure that Mr. Palmer was largely propaganding. But to say so would have been to violate that law against the expression of opinion in news columns, so essential to the truth and accuracy of our press. Moreover, if my memory is correct, somewhere in the series the Attorney-General told the press, in confidence, that he was putting forth his stories of revolution for a purpose. But one does not print confidences. In this case the news was that Attorney-General Palmer was issuing stories of discovered revolutionary plots to combat a certain radicalism in the labor movement. As printed it was that Attorney-General Palmer said--he permitted his name to be used--that he had discovered revolutionary plots. But the uncritical reader does not ask himself whether the Attorney-General may not be lying. And even if he were inclined to do so the headline throws him off his guard, for in the limited space available for captions, mere assertions tend to become facts. As it reached the reader's mind the fact that Mr. Palmer was avowedly issuing propaganda became the fact that evidences of a great Bolshevist plot against our institutions were being discovered almost daily. There are disadvantages in the official editing of news columns. The official does not always escape by shifting responsibility to the editor. The British during the Washington Conference introduced an improvement. They put out propaganda which had no authority at all. This the newspapers either had to leave out or to print on their own authority.