Letter from Ambassador Claude Bowers to President Harry S. Truman

EMBASSY OE THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Santiago, Chile - December 20, 1948 Dear Mr. President: I have been turning over in my mind your suggestion about an "analysis of the informational service from which we suffer". It is a subject on which I have thought for many years. It began to impress me as a grave danger in the processing of democracy long before it reached the acute stage where it is today. Both Jefferson and Lincoln had confidence in the successful operation of democratic institutions provided -- provided -- the mass of the people were put in possession of the facts. In the early days we had a strong partisan press which colored the news to suit partisan tastes, but everyone knew who owned and directed the papers and their partisan bias was frankly proclaimed. By getting both sides fully, the thoughtful could strike a balance and reach the truth. For many years now the major part of the metropolitan press, of the press in cities of more than 200,000 people, has been taken over by one school of political thought, and this is reactionary or ltra-conservative, and is too often subservient to selfish private interests whose politics is determined by personal greed. These are all the more dangerous because of their pose as "independent". Because of the enormous capital involved in the ownership of these papers, our people, who are not of the exploit- ing element and not millionaires, have found it impossible to possess or to retain possession of them. The result is that all fundamental issues before the people are presented fifty-two weeks in the year with a partisan interpretation. In my native State of Indiana, for example, we have not had a Democratic paper in the capital for forty years. In my boyhood we had the "Sentinel", Democratic, and the "Journal", Republican; now these have been absorbed Honorable Harry S. Truman, The White House, ARCHIVES "NATIONAL RECORDS AND of SERVICE* Washington, D. C. to commonly