Der Tag

Many a foreign news dispatch to the U. S. is about one-tenth fact and nine-tenths rumor and conjecture. Working in a murky subterranean world of censorship, rumor-mongering and diplomatic duplicity, an honest reporter must search every shovelful of rumor for the nugget of fact, assay each fact for the elusive motive that gives it value. On the basis of a single such fact, not necessarily important in itself, an impressive and vaguely portentous flow of dispatches can be written from the capitals of Europe, recounting rumored reactions and reactions to reactions.

Most fearsome of all rumors is the rumor of war. Living in an atmosphere heavy with war talk, the foreign correspondent is usually immune to war hysteria. Yet more than once the foreign correspondents have marched the people of Europe to the brink of battle and then marched them back again.

This time, war was to begin on August 15. The rumor was based on a fact: for that day. Hitler had ordered the beginning of the most extensive war games since the World War. This fact, combined with Hitler's known aims in Czechoslovakia, bred mutterings in the capitals of Europe which correspondents duly reported. U. S. papers trotted out a familiar headline: EUROPE TENSE.

But The Day came & went, and U. S. headlines were again reassuring. Next day, in an editorial entitled "Der Tag," the New York Times suggested that publicity was good for war scares: "Never before have Governments and peoples been so alert to danger as they are today. That explains the constant alarm signals. Perhaps it also explains why 'the day' is always postponed."

From Paris, dispassionate Pundit Wal ter Lippmann set the next deadline September 15.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.