Misrepresented

The Chrisian Science Monitor is in favor of Prohibition, and for that reason it hates to print anything that would lead a reader to suppose that legislative rulings pleasing to the " drys " are not being received with acclaim the world over.*

Take this matter of the recent Supreme Court ruling on liquor on the high seas.

Headlines The Monitor: " Foreign Anxiety over Dry Ruling is Disappearing."

But contemporary quotations from the British press are: The London Star: ..." Unjust and unreasonable interference."

The Westminster Gazette: . . . " Threatens to affect the liberties of citizens of other countries."

The Morning Post: "Why should we not solemnly declare that in the interests of good fellowship, international solidarity and the true happiness of mankind no vessel which does not carry one case of champagne or the equivalent in whiskey or beer for each passenger and each member of the crew can enter a British port ? "

The Daily News: " Interfere at will with the freedom of the world's maritime commerce."

The Daily Express: " Were it not for the suggestion that the Supreme Court is the last word in dignity and probity it would be legitimate to assume that these high and austere judges had their tongues in their cheeks when delivering this Solomon- baffling judgment."

The Evening Standard: " A striking breach of recognized international courtesy."

The Pall Mall Gazette: "When once you pass a silly law like prohibition you have to go on being silly all the time."

Under the headline " British comment on Liquor Decision," all of the above statements are " summarized " by the London correspondent of The Monitor thus: " The Press here gives considerable prominence to the United States Supreme Court's decision on the question of a ship's right to bring liquor into United States ports."

He doesn't say whether the " considerable prominence " is in favor of the ruling or against it. That seems to TIME to be unfair and a deliberate mispresentation of fact.

Mr. J. Was Absent/-

Another plank in The Monitor's platform for a better and a brighter world is the World Court.

On May 4 it published an article bearing this headline: " California for World Court Mr. Lenroot's Tour Reveals." The justification for this headline was the first paragraph of the article below it: "

California is overwhelmingly in favor of a World Court and sentiment is running strongly against ' those isolationists who, in a spirit of intense egotism and narrowness would wrap the American flag about them and cry " economic, industrial peace," when there is no peace.' Irvine L. Lenroot (R.), Senator from Wisconsin, told a representative of The Christian Science Monitor here."

In other words, there was no justification for the headline " California for World Court" other than Mr. Lenroot's say-so. An honest head would have been " Lenroot says California Favors World Court "--or words to that effect, properly padded or contracted so as to fit space.

Doubtless The Monitor is in intimate touch with the opinions of California voters. But it took a mean advantage to run that headline when Hiram Johnson is in Europe. Hiram Johnson is an irreconcilable of irreconcilables and bitterly opposed to the World Court. Twice the people of California elected him as their governor, and only last fall they reflected him to a second term in the United States Senate, where he is a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Libel

Chester A. Arthur, Jr., grandson of the late ex-President of the United States, is suing the New York Tribune for $25,000 for alleged libel. On April 2 the Tribune printed an article headed " Fifteen Thousand Dollars Is Raised Here to Drive the British Out of Ireland." Mr. Arthur sets forth that the article not only made him appear as favoring " driving the British out," but that it credited him with an attempt " to reconcile the Free State Party and the Irish Republican Party."

Pulp

The Forestry Committee of the American Newspaper Publishers' Association, allied with the American Paper and Pulp Association and National Forestry Program Committee, is urging on President Harding the importance of an annual appropriation of $2,000,000 for land purchase in the interest of forestation.

Men Who Steal Dogs

From an advertisement in the Boston Transcript:

" Mr. Smith, I see you have lost your dog."

" Yes."

" Don't you want to advertise him in the Boston " (naming another newspaper).

" I've already put an advertisement in the Boston Transcript."

" Well, the men who steal dogs don't read the Boston Transcript."

" Interesting Thoughts "

Under the heading " Interesting Thoughts on Uninteresting Topics," The New York World has inaugurated a feature column which in style and format is very like TIME'S Imaginary Interviews department.

*It must not be inferred from the above that TIME objects to strenuous advocacy of Prohibition. Let Prohibition be supported; let it be attacked; but always fairly supported or fairly attacked. Few public questions have been so mangled by the press as this Prohibition.

/-TIME devotes extended space to the story of The Monitor and its alleged misdeeds because popular fable has it that The Monitor is " one of the few honest papers alive today." When The Monitor goes wrong that is significant news--and TIME gets the same thrill out of it that a Hearst paper experiences when it catches a " prominent divine " in private difficulties.