The Work in Switzerland

QWITZERLAND was a notable victory and full credit |^ must go to Mrs. Norman de R. Whitehouse, in charge from bitter first to happy last. It was a new thing to place a woman in such a position of absolutely international importance, but behind her was a record of achievement that made the appointment wise and necessary. Equal suffrage in New York after its defeat in 1915 was apparently "dead," but Mrs. Whitehouse accepted the office of state chairman, galvanized the movement, gave it new force and enthusiasm, and drove it through to victory. It proved rare understanding of people and their prejudices; it meant technical knowledge of every medium of appeal, and, above all, it showed the translation of devotion into terms of energy and actual drudgery. Mrs. Whitehouse's job was to put America across in Switzerland just as she had put equal suffrage across in New York.

We knew that she was doing well, by our study of the Swiss papers, and we knew that she was winning when the German press commenced to attack her and the work with hysterical bitterness; but it remained for the six Swiss journalists, arriving in the United States as our guests, to tell the whole story of accomplishment.

"She has changed the whole attitude of Switzerland," they joined in declaring. "It was never the case that we were pro-Germans, but rather that we did not know America. This was the knowledge that she gave us, openly, honestly, and with rare intelligence, overcoming suspicions, climbing over a hundred and one obstacles, and reaching the heart and mind of Switzerland in a manner never approached by the agent of any other country."

With the exception of those owned by Germans, there was not a paper that she failed to influence fairly; her ultimate control of the motion-picture situation was complete; her use of speakers and literature was without an ounce of waste, and effective to the last degree was her inspiration of the German radical group in Switzerland, a band of enthusiasts who preached the gospel of democracy in the days when the world did not dream that the Hohenzollern could be divorced from his asserted union with divinity.

It was no easy task to which Mrs. Whitehouse was assigned. Switzerland, right under the German fist, lived in fear of meeting Belgium's fate, and there was a further compelling consideration in that the Swiss were dependent upon German coal for their railroads and industries. In addition to all this, German propaganda had been developing in Switzerland for thirty or forty years and was conducted by a corps of trained experts. It was common gossip that there were between eight and twelve hundred German diplomatic representatives, a large majority of whom had no other function than to praise Germany and to attack her enemies. A fundamental feature of the German policy was to buy or subsidize Swiss newspapers and news agencies and leave them under the Swiss directors. They also had a system of paying the smaller papers throughout Switzerland for every published paragraph or item sent out by German-owned news agencies.

The majority of the motion-picture houses in Germansis Switzerland were either owned outright or controlled by the German government. The same conditions applied to theaters, opera-houses, commercial establishments, and even to the news-stands. Aside from these controls, German agents had a very complete, accurate, and efficient system of circulation, and as a result Switzerland was inundated not only by pro-German propaganda, but with anti-Ally and especially anti-American propaganda.

"On my arrival," to quote from the report of Mrs. Whitehouse, "I found that the Germans were maintaining that America could not raise an army in spite of her draft law, that she could not train it, could not arm it, could not transport it to Europe, and that if she did, the untrained soldiers could not face the German heroes. They tried to persuade the Swiss that America was going to invade Switzerland in order to attack Germany. They agitated a great deal about a secret treaty, which was supposed to exist between the United States and Great Britain in regard to Japan. They tried to show our weakness at home by reporting that our difficulties on the Mexican border amounted to our being at war with that country and they insinuated that we meant to annex it. They tried to create difficulties between the Allies by articles showing that the Americans had invaded France to the latter country's disadvantage. They harped upon our supposed effort to steal Great Britain's place as the leader of commerce on the seas, and particularly did they exaggerate every delay in grain shipments from America, charging a Yankee effort to * starve poor Switzerland."1

Nowhere was there a single agency interested in presenting America's position or the American effort. The French and the English were concerned only with their own persuasions, and the news services sent out by Reuters and Havas contained few American items. The importance of Switzerland to us as a news center was that it was the only neutral nation whose newspapers are printed in the German language, and all of them had a free and large circulation in Austria and Germany. They were not only read by Germans, but the German press quoted from them freely, the liberal papers especially following everything that appeared in the Swiss papers. Getting our news into the German-Swiss press was the best way of getting it into Germany. It was also the case that Switzerland was filled with Germans and Austrians seeking escape from the privations of war, and these were naturally influenced by the Swiss papers that they read. In addition a great number of Germans came back and forth into Switzerland very freely and in large numbers, forming a virtual messenger service. It is therefore easy to be seen that Switzerland was a "first-line trench" in our drive against the morale of the German people.

It can be said truthfully that never at any time did Mrs. Whitehouse receive the assistance to which she was entitled. In the first place, Mr. Stovall, the American Minister, while a very delightful gentleman, was a Southerner with all the traditions of the South, and he had the very deep conviction that "woman's place is the home." In the second place, just before Mrs. Whitehouse sailed, The New York Times printed a story to the effect that she was proceeding to Switzerland as a representative of the President and giving the idea that her mission was diplomatic in its nature. This wretched canard, copied in the Swiss press, caused certain unpleasant reactions in all circles, and shortly before Mrs. Whitehouse's arrival an announcement was made to the effect that her work in Switzerland would be concerned with "women and children."

These misunderstandings were straightened out eventually by the frank statement of purpose that was our invariable policy. The President defined Mrs. Whitehouse's functions and the Swiss government, when it understood the true nature of her errand, gave full approval and all assistance. Even then, however, obstacles arose to embarrass and impede. As the real work had to be done in German-Switzerland, Mrs. Whitehouse's needs were translators and assistants who knew the German language in all of its dialects and idioms, and quite naturally this need could only be met by men and women of German birth. We searched the country over for this type of American and succeeded in finding several who possessed the necessary qualifications as well as having records for loyalty that were above question. No passports could be issued without the approval of Military Intelligence, and the officers of this division refused to let our selections go to Switzerland until after weeks and weeks of tedious investigation. Even when every test had been met, and when permission to sail had been granted, the French came forward with objections, and additional months had to be taken to convince them that the people we were sending were loyal Americans and not spies. All the while Mrs. Whitehouse was without this very necessary assistance, so that a great burden of unnecessary drudgery fell upon her own shoulders.

Unable to secure proper offices, lacking an office force, and compelled to work under every inconvenience, Mrs. Whitehouse drove ahead with unflagging energy. Borrowing Mr. George B. Fife from the Red Cross, her first activity was the translation and distribution of the daily cable and wireless service received from her office in Paris. To quote from her report:

Our service arrived early in the morning. It was rewritten in simple English, translated into French and German and delivered to the Agence Tel6graphique Suisse, the official Swiss news agency, which distributed it for us to the Swiss press. This agency was reported to be unsympathetic, and whether because of this fact or not, we found that mistakes were made in our figures and that sometimes important items were overlooked. This compelled us to take pains in confirming and reconfirming by telephone and by letter all figures, and in order to avoid any oversight in distributing important news items we ourselves would telegraph or telephone such items directly to the papers.

In August I was able to report to the Committee on Public Information in Washington that an estimated minimum of 2,000 paragraphs of our service was being published weekly in the Swiss papers. All of the President's speeches and notes were translated in full and sent both in English and German, or English and French, to every newspaper. Previously only extracts had been carried by Havas and Reuter. In addition, the News Service Department sent weekly bulletins directly to the editorial offices of all the papers, reviewing the American events of greatest interest of the past week, and commenting upon their significance.

The news items from our service aroused great public interest and discussion, and as a result both Havas and Reuter commenced to include a larger amount of American news in their daily releases. We believe that to this fact is due the enormously increased use of the Havas and Reuter items on American events.

From the Foreign Press Bureau in New York we received special articles and feature stories through the diplomatic pouch. These articles we found of great value, but they presented enormous difficulties. They had to be rewritten and edited from the Swiss point of view and connected with events in Switzerland, before they were translated. Until the armistice negotiations began to absorb public attention, we placed almost 100 per cent, of these articles which we succeeded in having translated. Extracts from the Foreign Press Bureau were useful as news items also, although they were many weeks old when we received them.

We also sent a biweekly inform ationservice to the editorial staffs of the newspapers, including in this service such material as Secretary Baker's military report, the Shipping Board's report, navy reports on naval constructions, etc. Many extracts from them were printed in the press and they furnished good material for editorials.

The Mittel Presse, an agency which served a collection of small German-Swiss papers, formerly considered pro-German, accepted a service of special articles from us three times a week

A number of pamphlets were issued and circulated, including the Bolshevik revelations, President Wilson's speeches, and one on America's achievement in the first year of the war. These pamphlets were printed in comparatively small numbers — about 10,000 in the first edition. They were distributed free to men of prominence and influence and put on sale at bookshops and news-stands at a nominal price.

It was in connection with pamphlet distribution that Mrs. Whitehouse gave most convincing proof of her executive intelligence. It had been the habit of the Allied propagandists to print pamphlets in huge quantities, giving them circulation without reference to readers. Mrs. Whitehouse made a survey of Switzerland that established the number of Swiss that spoke German, the number that spoke French, the number of men and women who could read, and the number of illiterates. As a consequence she issued ten thousand pamphlets instead of a million and had a mark for every one of her "paper bullets."

From a score of sources we learned of her tirelessness and courage. If she could not get a passenger-train she traveled on a freight. She made personal trips to every city and town, visited every editor, established relations with all the business and social organizations, and not the least of her achievements was the manner in which she enlisted the services of the university professors. William E. Rappard of the University of Geneva, one of Switzerland's most distinguished scholars, gave wonderful assistance, and so unselfish and unremitting were his efforts that it might almost be said that he became a part of the organization itself.

It may be remembered that President Wilson sent a message direct to the people of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a great word of encouragement that had the force of a military offensive. It was most important that the President's address should reach the people for whom it was intended, and without thought of danger or privation Mrs. Whitehouse herself crossed the frontier and placed the message in the proper channels for thorough circulation.

In the matter of motion pictures, the Allied propaganddists recognized that this was an important field of propaganda and appointed an inter- Allied committee to work out a plan of co-operation. The mere report of joint action caused one of the German-owned companies to offer for sale their large chain of houses, but in spite of this indication of power, the Allies could agree to no plans except that Allied film of commercial value should not be sold except on condition that a certain per cent, of news or propaganda film should be shown with it. In the mean time the British and French disputed that the Committee's propaganda films should be shown with American films of commercial value. The British claimed that all American commercial films were British property because the accepted business method was to sell American films to British firms, who reproduced them in England on British material. The French claimed they were French property because the method of renting them in Europe was through French firms with right for other countries.

Mrs. Whitehouse cut this Gordian knot by asking the Committee in Washington to obtain for her the exclusive rights for the distribution of all American commercial film in Switzerland, and not only did we do this, but we sent such film directly to her in the diplomatic pouch. It was also the case that the Paris office sent her battle-front film direct each week. Without further reference to the French and English, she prepared her own programs, combining the Committee's pictures with comedies and drama films, and gave them a circulation that soon covered the entire field.

With respect to photographs, Mrs. Whitehouse filled the shop-windows in Switzerland with them, and also arranged a system of glass display cases in which the pictures were changed weekly. In one month alone more than 2,000 enlarged photographs of 127 different kinds were on exhibition in 77 places, in 33 towns.

It was Mrs. Whitehouse who suggested that the Committee, in the name of the government of the United States, should invite the representative editors of Switzerland for the inspection of our war effort, and proof of the standing that she had gained in Switzerland was furnished by the fact that the delegation was virtually selected by the government itself and was almost official in its character. The tour of these six journalists was the finishing blow in our fight for the public opinion of Switzerland. Not only was it the case that each man sent back daily cables that increased in enthusiasm regularly, but upon their return they told the story of our resolve and invincibility in such direct phrases as to convince Switzerland that Germany was beaten and that the free peoples of the world had nothing to fear from our victory, but could look to it with hope and rejoicing.

There is no finer comment upon the work of Mrs. Whitehouse than the following editorial, written by the Swiss Middle Press News Bureau, anti-American in the beginning, and printed. in scores of papers that had been pro-German at the start:

It is stated that the American Committee on Public Information at Berne will close its bureau and discontinue its news service on February 22d.

This announcement cannot be passed over in silence. The American press service in Switzerland, as no other bureau which supplied the Swiss press with news and articles, has from the start taken a position which placed it far above the usual standard of propaganda. In this respect it formed a counterpart to the Swiss Mission, which not long ago went to America and was accompanied by Minister Sulzer, because it made it its principal 22 325 object to explain to the Swiss the true conditions and intentions of America and to bring the two republics to a better mutual understanding. Just because of this high interpretation of its task, it has fulfilled its purpose. As far as its activity concerned the war, it was anything but an imperialistic war agitation; rather has it carried on only propaganda for a just and lasting peace and thereby gained the full appreciation of Switzerland. There is probably no state and no statesman so highly esteemed and regarded with so much confidence in Switzerland as the North American Union and its President Wilson.

The following editorial from the Berner Tageblatt is also significant :

As we are informed, the American "Committee of Public Information" in Berne will close its offices and discontinue its news service. On this occasion, the recognition is due to this Press Bureau that its practice has been to give real information and not one-sided colored propaganda, as has been conspicuously the custom of similar foreign enterprises.

If I have seemed to deal too briefly with the Swiss achievement, it is because Mrs. Whitehouse has written her own story. A Year As a Government Agent, published by Harper & Brothers, sets down her experiences in careful and fascinating detail.