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JOHANN BERNSTORFF PUBLISHER There1 is nn element of the ironic in the fact that Count von Beriistorff alleged anibassadbr but really the kaisers chief spy in the United States should have been the owner of a paper in this country en ¬ titled Fair Play Apart from the gross impropriety of a diplomatic representative of a foreign power owning and controlling a Taper or periodical aimed at influencing public opinion in the country to which he is accredited could there be anything more preposterous as regards the case in point than calling such a paper by such a name nameIf If there is one thing which Bernstorff together with the bulk of his countrymen has shown him ¬ self utterly regardless of it is fair play Of course they will say that such phrases as fair play or playing the game are merely British or American that war is not a game and that all is fair in Var as in love But that is not the view of jin honor ¬ able people of any people with correct Ideas and high ideals or with a duly developed sense of right and wrong wrongThere There are things which all decent men shrink from and avoid both in love and war They will not deliberately profane the sanctities of the do ¬ mestic hearth or violate friendship in the name of love and the man who does so is regarded as a libertine and unfit for the society of decent and honorable persons Nor will they in war under a veil of friendship intrigue against the peace and good order of a neutral country which is affording them hospitality and protection and extending to them confidence and good will by admitting them to its homes clubs arii social institutions But such offenses and even worse were committed bv Bernstorff and his pernicious gang including such persons as Papen BoyrEd5 Rintelen Tauscher and scores of others who were admitted to the inti ¬ macy of American hearths and homes And to make his conduct a few degrees worse if possible Bernstorff besides debauching a number of journal ¬ ists some unfortunately calling theraselve Ameri caiis rau his own paper in this country under the name above all of Fair Play It beats comparison with the idea of Herod running an institution for orphan children or a cracksmanestabllshing a safe deposit society or an antiburglar insurance cor ¬ poration New York Herald
