Gag Bill

Of all times, U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle chose last week to ask Congress for a censorship law. And what a law!

The War Secrets Bill, which would make all existing censorship seem downright lax, would make it a criminal offense to "communicate, divulge or publish to any person, in whole or in part, copies or the contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning of any file, instrument, letter, memorandum, book, pamphlet, paper, document, manuscript, map, picture, plan, record or other writing" declared secret or confidential by any department of the Government. It was a gag bill, with a touch of the garrote.

Too much secrecy already was precisely what many a citizen blamed for a lot of U.S. trouble--the false optimism of the headlines, the complacency of the public, the rumor-mongering denounced by the President, the unhealthy morale denoted in the saying that the U.S. was fighting a "confidential war."

If Biddle's bill became law, reporters would be at the mercy of Government pressagents and handouts. Commented the Washington Post: "It might better be labeled 'a bill to halt criticism of any Government agency that wishes to conceal its blunders from the public.' " Said the pro-New Deal Chicago Sun: "His bill opens the way to concealment of every sort of error, failure and skulduggery. Documents which most need to be aired are always marked confidential."

Washington correspondents depend for most of their news sources which, under such a law, would shut up like clams. Congressmen would be as suspect as anybody else. Reporters would presumably be informed of "secret" material only by notice in the Federal Register -something like notice of divorce suit by advertisement. There was reason to believe that Censor Byron Price liked the bill as little as anybody; and such a law-a death sentence to voluntary censorship-would leave his Office of Censorship with little to do.

Such a law would go far to hamstring such public debate as prompted the reorganization of OPM and the Office of Civilian Defense. Said Senator Harry S. Truman, of the Truman Committee investigating the war program: If the bill is ever enacted, his committee "might as well adjourn." He meant that witnesses would find most of their data marked "secret" or "confidential."

Official reason for the War Secrets Bill was that it was aimed at spies, not at the press. Whoever it was aimed at, it was certain to hit the press. The need for such a bill was far from clear; present espionage laws have plenty of teeth.

But few Washington observers gave the bill a ghost of a chance to pass, in its present form. Said respected old Hatton W. Sumners, Chairman of the House

Judiciary Committee, who introduced the bill in the House: "I want to protect essential secrets from being disclosed to the enemy, but I want also to protect the people of this democracy in the opportunity to know the things which they ought to know in order to govern it." Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Frederick Van Nuys spoke even more emphatically: He promised that Attorney General Biddie's War Secrets Bill "will undergo as close a scrutiny as any that has ever come before the Judiciary Committee."

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