BY W. R. MALINQWSKI

HE .uprising in Warsaw is st &he end of its seventh week. The citizens have battled against the Geqnks

~ for almost fifty days with magnificent courage and heroism. In Warsaw proper the battle is being waged by the entire population; men, women, and children have joined the tight in support of the underground army and the fighting detachments of all political groups, including the battalions of the Communist Polish Workers Party.

For the third time since the beginning of this war ,Warsaw is the symbol of a peoples struggle. Five years after the defense of the capital in 1939, ,a year and a half after the Battle of ,the Warsaw GZzetb in 1943, the citizens of Warsaw are again paying a high price for their countrys right to freedom and independence. The demo- cratic and progressive character of ,this struggle is t e d - mony to ,the spirit prevailing in Poland today. For the backbone of the undergmund and of the underground army is the peasant and lzbor movements, which are steeped in the traditions of democracy.

The present Battle of Warsaw is one of the greatest tragedies of our t h e . For many long days the people of Warsaw have been prevented from receiving sufficient help from their allies largely by the still unresolved diAi- dty of obtaining Russian cooperation in facilitating. British and American aid. The U. S . 5. R., according to a Tass statement of August 10, di~sclaimed all responsibil- ity for the ilnsurrection in Wxsaw. wha t is more, t h e plight of the Polish fighters and the significance of heir struggle have been &nost completely ignored by the fib- era1 press of England and America. It is q&cialIy im- portant, therefore, that we examine the conditions which precipitated this struggle.

According to plans agreed upon by the Polish govern- ment and the leaders of the underground, the uprkng was to coincide with the Gennan retreat from Warsaw. On JuIy 30, through the medium of the Kosciuslco Broad- casting Station , i n MOSCOW, the Polish groups in t he U. S . S. R., whicI1 for more than .two years. have accused the Polish government of delaying the uprising, again gppealed to the people of Warsaw to revolt against their German oppressors (reported in the Manchester GtcrtrdL-m on August 2 2 ) . Apparently, all Polish groups were now i n agreement that She moment had come when Warsaw was .to rise and engage the enemy in open war. As the Germans began their evacuation of the city, they inddged in their. usual mass executions and ordered the transfer of factories, iogekher with their workers-the flesh and bbod of the Polish underground army-to the Rei&.

The German plans, which were about to nepfe fiVFTiXf3 of preparation by the underground for this day, plus the revolutionary tradition of the people of Warsaw, a tradi- tion dating back to 1794, made the opening of the Battle of Warsaw imperative. Everyone waited for Allied victories as the signal to ~ begin. Tlie uprising ,of a d o l e people could not of course be timed as pciseLy as, for instance, the iirvasion of the European Continent by the Allied armies. It was dependent on many .ciramtances.

During the first pcriod of the 5ghtin.g the Poles con- centrated upon seizing &e bridges across the V d d a in - order to prevent the Germans from reinforcing their troops and to emble the Red Army to cxoss #&e diver into the city proper. When this attempt pro$.edm premature, they changed to gnerdla warfare wi&in1&le city, aiming to tie up major enemy forces until &the Xed Army should arrive. In the present, third stage the upSsing has become a struggle to survive until the Red Army takes Warsaw.

The prolongation of the figlit in Warsaw m k e s neces- sary large stoclcs of ammunition, arms, food, and medical supplies. In response to constant appeals for help, the Western Allies, according to the New Ymk Tima of September 13, h a w finally sent plmes over W k a w a d dropped one hundred tons of supplies, which were ac- knowledged by the patriots. According to Premier Mikolajqk, however, the help that was promised Po- land when he, was in Moscow has nd been forthcorn- ing, despite the fact t h t a liaison oscer of the Red Axmy ~ has b,een in Warsaw since Augiit 7. It has also been re- vealed by Mikolajczyk that the ,United States a d Great Britain failed to get permission to use -air bases on Soviet territory mhich w ~ d d have fac3itated the delivery of sub- stantial aid. SubjectedL to intensive bomliardment by t he Luftwde, in constant need of more supplies (the under- ground has estimated .that five tons of food and ammuni- tion are needed daily), and facing the German threat. to execute hundreds of thousands of .civZians now held in Pzuszkow G.mp in reprisal for the hsutrection, the fighters of Warsaw have never,theless ,not g i v p up.

After the Red Armys seiame of Praga, a suburb of Warsaw, on September 14, Polish patriots could see t h e attacking Russians. O n September 15, according to a Moscowdcomuniquc!, Poles were still fighting .to secure a hold on khha west bank of the Vistula so ns to facilitate the Red A7rmys entrance into the city. On September 17, General Box, commander of the patriots, reported that - Soviet planes were dropping supplies to his forces.

In the medhtime the 2olish government, after M i h - t

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B4S lajczylrs negotiations with Stalin and with the Polish ,Committee of National Liberation, sent 5 conciliatory memorandum to Moscow. It was agreed by the Polish government in London and the Polish underground par- liament that a new Polish goveriunent was to be formed in liberated Warsaw by Prime Minister Mikolajczyk, who is also acceptable to .the Polish Committee of National Liberation as &e future Polish Premier. However, instead of renewed concentration on the problem of getting help to the embattled capital of Poland, a useless discussion was entered into with regard to the timing of the uprising and the culpability of the leaders, a discussion which merely served to veil &e real issue.

- The uprising in Warsaw has shown that the anti- fascist forces in-Poland now pIay an important role. The sacrifices of these people must not be in vain. The words of Premier Mikolajczyk, quoted in the-New Yorlc Times on September 1, are a fitting expression of the Polish spirit. H e declared-that Poland would not cease fighting as long as Germans stand on our soil and that Poland could not be denled its natural right to kill Germans. We may also recall the question posed by the labor leader now President-designate of the 6olish Republic, Iomasz Arciszewski, who recently arrived in London

*after five years of work in the Polish underground: Should the Allies leave Poland unaided in the present situation, the defeat will not be ours alone. For what will then be the thoughts and feelings of common, decent men all over the world who . . . took up arms in the sacred figk for democracy and justice in international relations?

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The NATION Dewey papels gave a liktle more 5pace to neutxal and 18 per cent to pro-Administration items,

If both groups of papers used the same material, they fre- quently showed their editorial preferen& in their headlines and in the sections they cut or kept. Thus the Cleveland Plait$ Deder (pro-Dewey) headlined an A. P. story Peace Say@ Seen for Smaller Fry, while the pro-Administration Rich- mond Times-Dispatch captioned it Deweys Fear Is Ground- less Hull Asserts. The two papers ran precisely the same story until, at the very end, the Plain Dealer, after quoting Senator ConnaIly (Dm.), added a pro-Dewey quotation from Senator Vandenberg (Rep.) ; the Times-Dispatch quoted only Gonnally and closed with a favorable refeF.ence to Hulls press conference omitted by &e Pldn Dealer.

Our study was based on an analysis of seven RooseveiC and seven Dewey papers. Since digerences in news coverage might be due to differences in the news available to the two groups, the papers chosen were matched In terms of their circulation. the regions in which they were published, and the time of appearance. As typical pro-Roosevelt papers the Ghicago Sun, the Louisville Courier-Journal, the Philadelphia Record, the Atlanta Constitztioz, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the New xork Post, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch were used, Matched with these were the pro-Dewey Chicago Tribune, , the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Philadelphia Enquirer, the Washington Times Herald, the Baltimore Sun, the Washing- ton Daily N e w , and h e Kansas City Stay. All fourteen papers were read from August 16 through August 26, ex- cluding Sunday,. August 20, when- the full sample was not available. Only the front pages were analyzed, since these pre- sumably contain the material which editors and publishers want to call to the attention of their readers.

Of a total of 369 stories in the Dewey papers, 119 wera devoted to the campaign. In the Roosevelt papers 1 6 of 8G5 stories dealt with the candidates and their activities or other political news. Thus in each group about 12 per cent of the front-page material was on the codng electian. In terms of inches Dewey papers gave slightly more space to the campaign bhan did Roosevelt papers (9.4 as against 8.7 per cent).

The major news breaks in the ten-day period covered were BepulbLican and Democratic reactions to the Dumbarton Oaks conference, the controversy in the War Produdion Board over Nelsons assignmegt to China and Wilsons resignation, and stories about Pearl Harbor, army censorship, lhors role io the campaign, and reconversion. The development of Repub- limn foreign policy received very different emphasis in the two groups of papers. Dewey papers devoted four times as mu& space to the Dulles-Hull conference as the Rooseveit supporters (447 to 124 column inches). But the conference betyeen Willkie and DuIles was given almost twice a3 much space in pro-Administration as in pro-Republican papers (101 to 61 coIumn fnches)-because Clrillkies agreement to meet with Dulles was accompanied by a rebuff to! Dewey. In general, then, the study shows dearly that editorrak

preferences influence the selection and treatment of campaign news. And since a large majority of papers are anti-Admin- istration, the greater part of the news to which the p&fic is exposed has that slant.

BUREAU OF APPLIED SOCIAL RESEARCH9 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NPW YORIG ,

ias ONTR4RY to the presss theory that it reports the news straight, without reference to editorial oplnions, a

study conducted by th is bureau shows that Roosevelt and Dewey papers differ sharply in the content of their front - pages. They devote almost exactly the same proportion of &eir front pages to the campaign, but they choose somewhat different subjects and often angle the news.

Mora than half the stories in-the Roosevelt papers were pro-Roosevelt; almost half of those in ~ &he Dewey papers favored the Republicans. In m3-1 group the conteiit of about one in every five stories was favorable to the opposition. Three of every ten campaign stories on the front pages of the Roosevelt papers were neutfal in content; between three and four of every ten were neutral In the Dewey papers. Both - groups were even more partisan in terms of space than in terms of nmlber of stories. Thus 56 per cent o the 2,089 column inches given to &e campdgn In the Roosevelt papers was pro-Roosevelt or anti-Dewey material; 51 per cent of the 2,289 campaign inches in papers for Dewey favored him. About one-fourth of the space in Roosevelt papers was neu- tral; $5 per cent was unfavorable to the Administration,

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