It may be argued that the newspaper, which is a business, ought to be controlled, directly and indirectly, by business interests; and certainly if we allow the commercial powers to manage our food supply, transportation, and housing, it is a relatively minor matter if the same powers dominate our press. In like manner if we tolerate dishonest governments, we are only dealing with an epiphenomenon when we consider the dishonest and inefficient treatment by the press of public affairs, national and international. All the news of politics, diplomacy, war, world-trade emanates from government officials or from those who are interested in turning to their own advantage the actions of officials. Business is behind government, and government is behind business; which comes first is unimportant like the problem of the chicken and the egg. It is a partnership of swindle, and though the details of the relation are infinitely complicated, the relation in itself is easy to understand and accounts quite simply for the fact that world news is the most viciously polluted of all the many kinds of news. The efforts of a merchant to keep up the good name of his department store, or of a group of manufacturers to break a strike are feeble and even reasonable, so far as they use the newspapers, compared to the audacious perversion of truth by the combination of arch criminals, government and international business. The star example in modern times is the current newspaper history of Russia. The New York _Nation_ of March 6, 1920, published an article showing that in the columns of the New York Times Lenin had died once, been almost killed three times, and had fallen and fled innumerable times. The _New Republic_ published August 4, 1920, a supplement by Lippmann and Merz summarizing the news which the _Times_ printed about Russia during the three years preceding March 1920. The analysis shows an almost unbroken daily misrepresentation of the programme, purposes and strength of the Russian government and continuous false “optimism,” as the writers gently call it, about the military exploits of Russia’s enemies, the “white hopes,” Kolchak and Denekin. The writers expressly state that they did not select the _Times_ because it is worse than other papers but, on the contrary, because it “is one of the really great newspapers of the world.” “Rich” or “powerful” would have been a better word than “great.” The sources of error in the Times were the Associated Press, the special correspondents of the Times, government officials and political factions hostile to the present Russian régime. Among the offenders was the United States Government or the journalistic fake-factory in or adjacent to the Department of State. At this writing the article in the _New Republic_ has been out nearly a year, that in the _Nation_ more than a year. It is fair to assume that they have been seen by the managers of the _Times_ and other powerful