The Breckenridge News

No Movie Men Allowed With Invading Forces and None but Real Reporters Permitted to Accompany Expedition.
Violators of Rules Liable to Arrest.
Personal Communications Read.

General Funston has decreed that only a few war correspondents shall accompany the American forces into Mexico.

Secretary of War Baker has upheld the decision of General Funston, but strong pressure is being brought to bear on him to throw open the doors.

The degree of censorship imposed by General Funston so far has been mild compared to that he can exercise under the army regulations. It is prescribed in the regulations that censorship within the theater of operations is controlled by the commander of the field forces. An officer is assigned as censor and provided with necessary assistants.

Stops Public and Private News.

Censorship includes censorship over private communications and over press publications and communications.

All private communications, whether they be of officers, soldiers, foreign attaches, newspaper correspondents or any other individuals, dispatched from the theater of operations are liable to censorship. A censor is authorized to suppress any statement that might be of value to the enemy or prejudicial to the welfare of the forces in the field.

All newspapers or journals in the theater of operations are subject to censorship, and they can be suppressed by the censor whenever he deems it expedient.

Each correspondent is required to file an application giving a brief history of his career and to take an oath of loyalty of the usual military form. Their employers are required to give bond for them. Men who have evidently secured credentials with a view to adventure rather than serious work as correspondents will not be received, and the secretary of war has power to say to whom passes shall be given.

The regulations provide that an official photographer shall accompany each field army or other important independent field force. His films and plates will be sent to Washington promptly, where prints will be issued at a nominal cost to the press. No professional photographers and moving picture men will be received.

Regular correspondents may carry small hand film cameras, but the films must be sent to the censor with the field forces or to the chief censor at Washington, where they will be developed and such of them as pass censorship will be sent to any given address.

The chief censor in Washington shall be a commissioned officer. In this instance he is Captain Cootes, attached to the general staff. There is also a censor attached to General Funston's headquarters, and General Pershing will also have a censor in the field.

All correspondents' news or private dispatches, mail letters for publication, private letters, drawings and photographs must be submitted to the censor and receive his stamp before being sent.

The correspondent will not be allowed to send information concerning the occupation or relinquishment of a position, the news of any victory or defeat, the names of organizations or commanders, the disposition of troops, the state of supply or transport, the number of sick, the extent of losses or any other matters of information unless the dispatch or report containing such information is passed on and authorized by the censor. After censorship the correspondent will be shown what, if anything, has been elided by the censor. Any relaxation of these regulations rests with the commander of the field forces, in this case General Funston.

Liable to Arrest.

The official army telegraph lines are open to correspondents for the sending of dispatches when not occupied with official dispatches, but the dispatches will be sent in the order filed, and the censor shall say how many words may be sent. Within the censor's discretion correspondents may send messengers to carry censored dispatches to better wire facilities than those at the immediate front.

Correspondents are required to dress in the same olive drab uniform worn by the army, but each wears a white brassard on his arm marked with a C to designate his calling. No correspondent can leave the army to which he is attached, either to go home or any other place, without the consent of the war department.

Correspondents can be suspended for distortion of dispatches in the office of publication and also for the use of language or expressions conveying hidden meaning which would tend to deceive or mislead the censor. For extreme offenses they may be sent to the rear under arrest.