Joseph P. Tumulty to Woodrow Wilson
Title
Joseph P. Tumulty to Woodrow Wilson
Creator
Tumulty, Joseph P. (Joseph Patrick), 1879-1954
Identifier
WWP21336
Date
1917 May 8
Description
Tumulty is warning Wilson of the unpopularity of the Espionage Bill.
Source
Library of Congress, Woodrow Wilson Papers, 1786-1957
Language
English
Text
Dear Governor:
The path of the Espionage Bill will be made more difficult by the memorandum issued yesterday at the State Department and distributed broadcast, warning all officials not to talk with newspapermen “even on insignificant matters of fact or detail.”
I know how strongly you feel on the matter of a strict censorship but I would not be doing my full duty to you and the Administration if I did not say to you that there is gradually growing a feeling of bitter resentment against the whole business, which is daily spreading. The experience of the Administration of President Adams in fostering the Alien and Sedition laws bids us beware of this whole business. Of course there is a great difference between the situation which confronts us and that which confronted some of your predecessors; but the whole atmosphere surrounding the Espionage Bill is hurtful and injurious, because of the impression which has gained root with startling intensity that the bill is really a gigantic machine, erected for the despotic control of the press and that the power provided for in the bill must of necessity be delegated by the President and that the press will be controlled by a host of small bureaucrats who will interpret the President's instructions according to their own intellects.
I have gathered during the last week editorial comment from various journals throughout the country which have been our firmest supporters and they are unanimous in condemning what they consider to be the unjust features of this legislation.
I am sending you clippings from the New York World (1); Philadelphia Record (2); Washington Evening Star (3); St. Louis Post Dispatch (4); New York Commercial (5); and New York Times (6).
I beg to call your attention to the final paragraphs of the editorial written by one of the wisest political observers in the country who writes under the name of “Uncle Dudley” for the Boston Daily Globe. He says:
"The American people could not long endure the necessary war-time conscription of men and property, if the truth were also conscripted. They are the greatest reading public in the world. For nearly three years they have heard every account of the war which their papers could secure for them. They could not stand a shutdown of news just as they enter the war themselves.
"The American people are called to a mighty effort to save the world from an attempt at autocratic domination. Great sacrifices are before them. They are ready to endure whatever is necessary for the work in hand. But if they are to try their hardest, they must know that no effort is wasted; that public offices are administered with faith and efficiency. Public judgment must be passed on those who are weak and those who are strong in the Government. When a department requires reorganization, the people must know it, otherwise it might not be reorganized.
"In fighting for the truth, democracy must know the truth. The more completely the attempt to censor the press is killed, the better for the cause of freedom. The press has no desire to expose military secrets. It wants America to win.”
I also beg to call your attention to an excerpt from the life of John Adams, (American Statesmen series, p. 283):
"The two grand blunders of the Federal party were committed in these same moments of heat and blindness; these were the famous Alien and Sedition Acts. No one has ever been able heartily or successfully to defend these foolish outbursts of ill-considered legislation which have to be abandoned, by tacit general consent, to condemnation. Every biographer has endeavored to clear the fame of his own hero from any complicity in the sorry business, until it has come to pass that, if all the evidence that has been adduced can be believed, these statutes were foundlings, veritable filii nullius, for whom no man was responsible. But Mr. Adams, it must be acknowledged, did not strangle these children of folly; on the contrary, he set his signature upon them; a little later he even expressed a 'fear' that the Alien Act would not 'upon trial be found adequate to the object intended;' and many years afterward, by which time certainly he ought to have been wiser, he declared, without repentance, that he had believed them to be 'constitutional and salutary, if not necessary.'”
Sincerely yours
Joseph P. Tumulty
The President
The White House.
The path of the Espionage Bill will be made more difficult by the memorandum issued yesterday at the State Department and distributed broadcast, warning all officials not to talk with newspapermen “even on insignificant matters of fact or detail.”
I know how strongly you feel on the matter of a strict censorship but I would not be doing my full duty to you and the Administration if I did not say to you that there is gradually growing a feeling of bitter resentment against the whole business, which is daily spreading. The experience of the Administration of President Adams in fostering the Alien and Sedition laws bids us beware of this whole business. Of course there is a great difference between the situation which confronts us and that which confronted some of your predecessors; but the whole atmosphere surrounding the Espionage Bill is hurtful and injurious, because of the impression which has gained root with startling intensity that the bill is really a gigantic machine, erected for the despotic control of the press and that the power provided for in the bill must of necessity be delegated by the President and that the press will be controlled by a host of small bureaucrats who will interpret the President's instructions according to their own intellects.
I have gathered during the last week editorial comment from various journals throughout the country which have been our firmest supporters and they are unanimous in condemning what they consider to be the unjust features of this legislation.
I am sending you clippings from the New York World (1); Philadelphia Record (2); Washington Evening Star (3); St. Louis Post Dispatch (4); New York Commercial (5); and New York Times (6).
I beg to call your attention to the final paragraphs of the editorial written by one of the wisest political observers in the country who writes under the name of “Uncle Dudley” for the Boston Daily Globe. He says:
"The American people could not long endure the necessary war-time conscription of men and property, if the truth were also conscripted. They are the greatest reading public in the world. For nearly three years they have heard every account of the war which their papers could secure for them. They could not stand a shutdown of news just as they enter the war themselves.
"The American people are called to a mighty effort to save the world from an attempt at autocratic domination. Great sacrifices are before them. They are ready to endure whatever is necessary for the work in hand. But if they are to try their hardest, they must know that no effort is wasted; that public offices are administered with faith and efficiency. Public judgment must be passed on those who are weak and those who are strong in the Government. When a department requires reorganization, the people must know it, otherwise it might not be reorganized.
"In fighting for the truth, democracy must know the truth. The more completely the attempt to censor the press is killed, the better for the cause of freedom. The press has no desire to expose military secrets. It wants America to win.”
I also beg to call your attention to an excerpt from the life of John Adams, (American Statesmen series, p. 283):
"The two grand blunders of the Federal party were committed in these same moments of heat and blindness; these were the famous Alien and Sedition Acts. No one has ever been able heartily or successfully to defend these foolish outbursts of ill-considered legislation which have to be abandoned, by tacit general consent, to condemnation. Every biographer has endeavored to clear the fame of his own hero from any complicity in the sorry business, until it has come to pass that, if all the evidence that has been adduced can be believed, these statutes were foundlings, veritable filii nullius, for whom no man was responsible. But Mr. Adams, it must be acknowledged, did not strangle these children of folly; on the contrary, he set his signature upon them; a little later he even expressed a 'fear' that the Alien Act would not 'upon trial be found adequate to the object intended;' and many years afterward, by which time certainly he ought to have been wiser, he declared, without repentance, that he had believed them to be 'constitutional and salutary, if not necessary.'”
Sincerely yours
Joseph P. Tumulty
The President
The White House.
Original Format
Letter
To
Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924
Files
Collection
Citation
Tumulty, Joseph P. (Joseph Patrick), 1879-1954, “Joseph P. Tumulty to Woodrow Wilson,” 1917 May 8, WWP21336, World War I Letters, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.