"Another factor that has improved the attitude of the American Press towards Germany is the recent important development of the wireless news service. By this I do not mean so much the extension of the trans-Atlantic service in the communications of which a considerable part of the Press here seems unfortunately to take little interest, but the radiographic transmission of the full reports of American correspondents in Berlin and on the German fronts to the American newspapers or news agencies. Among the interesting reports that have been received direct and unmutilated in this way those of Messrs. William B. Hale, Karl von Wiegand, Cyril Brown and Karl W. Ackerman have exerted a particularly favorable influence for us, especially at the critical moments of the break-through in southern Galicia and the battles of the Somme, when, without the special news service via Nauen, the American Press would have been completely misled by the mass of reports that were flowing in from London. Among American journalists who worked in Germany, Herbert Swope should be particularly mentioned, who, after his return, published in _The World_ and other Pulitzer papers, a series of fourteen articles on the situation and feeling in Germany which attracted the attention of both the Press and the reading public. In a most undesirable way Mr. Swope in his first articles which appeared immediately before the election--it was simply an electioneering manoeuvre--emphasized the deep hatred of the German people for the United States and the alleged general wish of all German circles to see Mr. Wilson defeated at the election as a punishment for his unneutral attitude. To compensate for this he performed a very valuable service for us in his later articles by giving a convincing account of the economic situation in Germany at that time, which removed all doubt over here as to the ability of our enemies to starve Germany out, and revived public respect for Germany's efficiency and organizing-power.

"The great and respectful tribute which the American Press pays to German 'efficiency' at every opportunity--and during the last few months there have been many such opportunities--can, however, do little or nothing to alter the deep 'sentiment' against Germany. As soon as the above-mentioned themes of Belgium and the _Lusitania_ are mentioned, there are few papers that do not indulge, either in aggressive or more moderate terms, in expressions of horror at German 'frightfulness' and 'ruthlessness.'

My Three Years in America — Part 215