Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/292

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important than it formerly was, the change is not due entirely to an autocratic censor, to the disfavor of military commanders,

and to the sensitiveness of political leaders. The historian him self is changing his method of work in writing of war and he is

concerned with many other aspects of it besides the chronological narrative of events. He finds material for his study of wars in scores of places in the daily press where formerly he depended

on the war correspondent alone. International relations, dis

cussions of preparedness, relief organizations, Red Cross work , self-help for those disabled by war, the manufacture of muni tions, the increased cost of living, the duties and the rights of neutrals, — these are but a few of the many aspects of war with

which he is concerned. For knowledge of these conditions en tailed by war and of the public opinion respecting them the historian turns, not to the war correspondent, but to official documents now speedily given to the press; to the reports of

great mass meetings held everywhere in the interests of war or peace; to the accounts of associations formed to relieve the suf ferers from war; to new plans of education whereby the lame, the halt, the deaf, and the blind all the victims of war - may be taught to become self-supporting; to editorials that with calmness or with fervor discuss the intricate international phases of war ; to advertisements that unconsciously reveal both the sordid and the heroic characteristics developed by war. All of this to - day means war quite as much as does the actual combat of opposing forces. The war correspondent must adapt himself to new conditions.

Barred from the field of war itself, little reporting or description of actual warfare is possible . Little “ local color ” can be given his reports, since all scenes of war are much the same. Descrip

tions of scenery and of places pall amid the tragedies and the havoc wrought by war. The new directions towards which the war correspondent is

turning, as seen in the time of the Great War, are those of attempting to understand and report the causes of war as seen

at short range; of gathering up the separate lines and making of them a coherent whole ; of placing greater emphasis on his

own systematic intellectual and technical training for war