dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there’s no doubt about it.
April 17, 1952
President Truman indicated today that he believed he or any United States President had the theoretical power to seize newspapers and radio stations to protect the national welfare in war or great emergency.
But a White House spokesman quickly added that it was “absolutely unlikely” anything of that nature ever would have to be done.
Mr. Truman’s view, given at a news conference, startled some of the editors here for the annual meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
Controversy has boiled over the President’s seizure of the steel mills. One of the visiting editors asked the President: “If it is proper under your inherent powers to seize the steel mills, can you in your opinion seize the newspapers and the radio stations?”
Mr. Truman replied that under similar circumstances the President the President had to do whatever he believed was best for the country.
[…]
Several of the editors, many of whom attended the press conference, did not believe the President actually meant he had power to take over radio stations and newspapers.
Anthony F. Jones, president of Newspaper Editors and editor of the Syracuse (NY) Hearld-Journal, said: “What I thought the President meant was that he has the power to take over steel. It would be putting words in his mouth to say anything else.”
But Walter M. Harrison of Oklahoma City, former president of the society, said: “I think he meant he could take over the papers, radio, and everything else. If that isn’t on the edge of totalitarianism, I don’t know what is.”
April 18, 1952
The White House minimized today President Truman’s remark yesterday implying that he had the power to seize newspapers and radio stations in an emergency.
Joseph Short, White House press secretary, was asked for clarification or amplification of Mr. Truman’s answer to a question at his news conference.
“It was a purely academic and hypothetical question and there is no amplification or comment to it,” Mr. Short said.
A reporter then said that some editors, members of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, seemed to interpret Mr. Truman’s reply as affirmative.
“You can quote them on it,” Mr. Short retorted.
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April 18, 1952
The directors of the Maryland Press Association approved today a resolution calling for a “new amendment to the Constitution providing safeguard against the exercise of dictatorial power by the President of the United States.”
The action was taken, the resolution stated, because the President “has intimated publicly that he believes he has the inherent power to seize property, whether it be a public utility, an industry, or the press.
January 19, 1957
The path followed by President Truman during his Administration and now by President Eisenhower in the censorship of news “is a road that can be used toward dictatorship,” Norman E. Issacs, managing editor of the Louisville Courier – Journal and Times said here tonight.
He spoke on “America’s Iron Curtain” before 500 persons at the Rockdale Avenue Temple’s 133rd annual dinnver. Mr. Issacs said that neither Mr. Truman nor Mr. Eisenhower were “dictatorial types” but that under their Administration there had been forged “the ideal tools for the use of an unscrupulous man or group of men.”
Mr. Issacs is a former president of the Associated Press Managing Editors Association and served as national chairman of the organization’s Freedom of Information Committee.
On the Federal, state, and local levels, governmental executives are taking the people toward abondonment of free institutions and the acceptance of secret institutions, Mr. Issacs said.
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