If you had stopped to consider the radically different relations existing between the press and the Government in Germany and in America, you would scarcely have fallen into the error of asserting that a considerable proportion of our papers, in common with those of other nations, have "laboured in the employ or at the instigation of" the Government, "with all the implements of mendacity and defamation, to spread hatred and contempt for Germany." Unlike your own, our press is wholly free from Government control. Any attempt on the part of our Government to dictate the policy of any newspaper would be hotly resented, and would be doomed to certain failure. Americans do not believe in the German doctrine that the press must be "so far controlled as is requisite for the welfare of the community," and hold that absolute freedom of speech is essential to true liberty. There is no censorship of the American press. You have a censorship which all the outside world knows has been wonderfully effective in keeping some important facts from the knowledge of the German people. No American paper can be suppressed because of what it prints. You are, of course, well aware that, on more than one occasion, German papers have been suppressed for certain periods because your Government did not believe that what they said was for the good of the country. I enclose a message received by wireless under German control which is only one of the many announcements telling of suppression of your papers. It does not alter the situation to say that censorship and suppression are necessary for the good of the Fatherland, and that the papers in question deserved to be suppressed. The vital fact remains that your newspapers are not free to publish anything they like. Ours are thus free. Every issue of your papers must be submitted to your police, so that your rulers may control what you write and read. Not a paper in America is submitted to any official whatever. You cannot read anything which your Government believes it wise to keep from you. We can read everything, whether the Government likes it or not. Americans believe there can be no truly free press, and no real unfettered public opinion, with the possibility of punishment hanging over the press of a country. Where the police, representing the ruling power, controls the press there is no true liberty. Whatever else may be said against the American press, it must be admitted that it is free from Government control. It is not necessary, therefore, to inquire whether the American Government has employed or instigated the public press to attack Germany, since, even if it desired to do so, it would not dare make the attempt.