organization of the air division, excepting when authorized by the Committee on Public Information.
14. Information of all government devices and experiments in war material, excepting when authorized by the Committee on Public Information.
15. Information of secret notices issued to mariners or other confidential instructions issued by the navy or the Department of Commerce relating to lights, lightships, buoys, or other guides to navigation.
16. Information as to the number, size, character, or location of ships of the navy ordered laid down at any port or shipyard, or in actual process of construction; or information that they are launched or in commission.
17. Information of the train or boat schedules of traveling official missions in transit through the United States.
18. Information of the transportation of munitions or of war material.
Photographs.—Photographs conveying the information specified above should not be published.
These requests to the press are without larger authority than the necessities of the war-making branches. Their enforcement is a matter for the press itself. To the overwhelming proportion of newspapers who have given unselfish, patriotic adherence to the voluntary agreement the government extends its gratitude and high appreciation.
Committee on Public Information,
By George Creel, Chairman.
Will any American deny that these requests proceeded properly and inevitably from the necessities of war, and that each one had its base in common sense? Do they suggest any attempt on the part of the government to curb, influence, or confine the right of criticism? Even to-day, when the war is a thing of the past, can it be said that the card contained a word or a phrase to which any decent American could take objection? Newspaper men, it must be remembered, were holding peace-time jobs while others sacrificed or fought. Should it not have been their glad duty to aid enthusiastically in the provision of a veil of
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