ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 69, 22 March 1934, Page 17

ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT.

POWER OF FREE PRESS. PEOPLE'S GREAT SAFEGUARD. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SAN FRANCISCO, February 23. Describing American newspapers as "the power plant of democracy," Carl W. Ackerman, Columbia University dean of journalism, placed tlie major burden of preserving world-wide peace upon fieedom of the Press. "To-day it is still possible to prevent another world war," Mr. Ackerman told a convention of Ohio newspaper editors. "It may be possible to prevent wars in the Orient and in Europe. Until both are impossible we must launch pcace ideas before we launch battleships and aeroplanes on ft war scale." International peace, Mr. Ackerman said, is anchored to freedom of the Press. He drew a parallel between nations on the verge of war and those whose intentions were manifestly peaceful, and added that in nations militantly inclinedRussia, Germany, France and Japan a rigid censorship prevailed. "People do not want war," he said. "As an international policy there can be no greater safeguard of peace than freedom of the Press. But at present the world is black with prohibition of free speech, freedom of the Press, freedom of petition and freedom of religion." _ , American journalism during the first eleven months of President Roosevelt's administration, Mr. Ackerman said, had convinced the nation that in time- of crisis no Government official had the right or power to censor the Press."