EXAMINED BY SENATE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 19, 23 January 1924, Page 7

EXAMINED BY SENATE

DONOR DECLINES TO STATE COST-

QUESTION.OF PROPAGANDA.

(MITIB, PEWi iSSOCUTTON.—COMRIOHT.) (ADSTKAUAN-NKW ZgALAXD CA*U ASSOCIATION.) ,- WASHINGTON, 21st January.

The Senate's investigation info the Bok peace award, was brought to a halt abruptly .when Bpk refused to tell the committee the amount of the fund established to advertise the plan. Bok admitted that he paid every penny of the costs of the award, but refused to divulge the amount, saying, '"This is my business. It is my affair, pure and Simple." Then ensued half-an-hour's persistent questioning without avail. Senator T. H. Caraway told Bok that people would suspect that something was wrong about the offer. , Bok replied: "There'is nothing to hide. I am footing ; the bill. I tell you frankly the source of the money. It comes from me, and I am perfectly willing to trust the American people's opinion of me." Caraway thereupon rejoined:' "I am rather persuaded you have hurt your cause," to which Bok answered: "I cannot see your" way. I cannot see how the amount would satisfy anything except curiosity." Senator J. A*. Reed attacked the award literature, declaring that it -was largely propaganda. "What is your definition of propaganda?" asked Bok, to which Senator Reed replied: "If you don't know'you ought not be undertaking to regulate the affairs y of "the world." The committee thereupon adjourned to consider a means of forcing Bok to answer. . ~ ' The judges of the Bok American Peace Award Contest recently transmitted to the donor of the prize the winning plan, .-the author of whiclr-was to receive 50,000 dollars on 7th January, when his identity was to be disclosed. , > The plan was intended to be submitted via the churches and newspapers for a referendum of the American people, and if the plan won wide public approval as a practicable method of achieving world peace, the author was to receive another 50,000 dollar "prize. The prize was donated by Edward M. Bok, editor-in-chief of the-"Ladies' Home Journal" from 1889 to 1919 and vicepresident of the Curtis Publishing Company since 1891. The amount of 100,000 dollars was offered to the American who devises the most practical scheme under which the United States might co-oper-ate with other nations to achieve world peace. The United States Senate then ap- k pointed a. committee under the chairmanship of G. K. Moses to investigate the charges that organised propaganda was operating on behalf of the Bok Peace Prize Plan, and that foreign efforts were being made to influence the. domestic and foreign policies of the United States. It was understood that the committee would revive the League of Nations issue, and attempt to formulate an organised attack against the plan.