The news and the public.
All our city contemporaries seem to be employed in discussing the extent to which war news ought to be communicated to the public. We do not see why we, too, should not take a hand in the discussion.We think it very proper in a General to take steps for preventing the communication of army movements through the press, or through any other channel, to the public, unless it be such as relates to transactions already known to the public, or such as he himself expressly permits. The reason upon which such restriction is founded is too obvious to require notice. It would, indeed, be a good general rule to allow only such news to transpire as may have received the sanction of the War office. Yet it seems to us that when a great battle has been fought — no matter what may be the result — the public should be put in possession of the facts, let the result be what it may, as soon as possible. Napoleon always kept Paris supplied with such intelligence as he chose to communicate relative to his movements, through his bulletins, which formed, in fact, a concise and satisfactory history of the war. In the same way, it seems to us, our Generals might send reports of their, movements, which might be laid before the public, all things which it might be improper to make known having been first carefully excluded. The publication of such reports, as soon as received would answer a good purpose in more ways than one. It would put an end to the enormously exaggerated rumors by which the public are liable to be distressed every moment in the day. It would soothe the minds of the people, if there is nothing really alarming, and enable them to look their situation calmly in the face, if there is. We should not see them at one moment exalted to the skies by hope, and at the next cast down to the earth by despondency. They would be sure of having the truth, whatever it might be, whether good or bad. Nothing can be more detrimental to a cause, among those who adhere to it, than false statements with regard to successes. The truth will be sure to come out at last, and, when a victory is claimed where a defeat has been sustained, the reaction in the public mind is always proportionate to its previous exaltation as soon as the truth leaks out. One of our contemporaries alludes to a curious instance of this, related by Polybius, in his narrative of the 2d Punic war. A Roman consul, whose army had been almost entirely destroyed in the first of those tremendous defeats which Hannibal inflicted upon his countrymen, wrote home that he had gained a victory, although he had not the third part of his army around his banners, and had retreated or rather fled some thirty or forty miles from the scene of conflict.--The Senate proclaimed it to the people, and the people were intoxicated with joy. In the mean time, however, stragglers began to come in at first singly, then in couples, finally in bands. All of them told the same tale. They had been beaten on the bloodiest field Rome had ever seen until that day. The reaction was tremendous. Rome was mad with despair, overwhelmed with grief, incapable, from consternation, of taking council for the general safety. It were better had the flattering tale never been told.--This was the first lying bulletin of which we have any account. There have been many since, and none of them have been productive of good, so far as we can learn.
Truth is always best, under all circumstances. In war it is especially so. We do not mean that a General should blab out his secrets, or that the Government should tell what it is improper to divulge. But when it has ascertained the truth with regard to any operation in which the public is deeply interested, and when it is not important to keep it back, then out with it at once. Let it be laid at once before the people.
