To minimize
these risks the financiers call in the assistance of the
military and naval forces of the country which they
are momentarily asserting to be theirs. In order to
have the support of public opinion in this demand
they have recourse to the power of the Press.
The Press is the second great factor to which
critics of capitalism point when they wish to prove
that capitalism is the source of modern war. Since
the running of a big newspaper requires a large capital,
the proprietors of important organs necessarily
belong to the capitalist class, and it will be a rare
and exceptional event if they do not sympathize with
their own class in opinion and outlook. They are
able to decide what news the great mass of newspaper
readers shall be allowed to have. They can
actually falsify the news, or, without going so far
as that, they can carefully select it, giving such items
as will stimulate the passions which they desire to
stimulate, and suppressing such items as would provide
the antidote. In this way the picture of the
world in the mind of the average newspaper reader
is made to be not a true picture, but in the main
that which suits the interests of capitalists. This is
true in many directions, but above all in what con-
cerns the relations between nations.
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