By way of illustration, let me tell you the amusing story of one American newspaper which was thus bought in the open market. Some years ago there was a Standard Oil magnate, H. M. Flagler, who took a fancy to the state of Florida, and entertained himself by developing it into a leisure-class resort. He owned all the railroads, and a great chain of hotels, and also, as a matter of course, the State legislature. He had the misfortune to have an insane wife, and the laws of Florida did not permit him to divorce this wife, so he caused to be introduced and passed a bill permitting divorce on grounds of insanity. But, being a moral citizen, who believed in the sanctity of marriage for everybody but himself, Mr. Flagler allowed this law to stand only long enough for him to get his divorce. He then had his legislature repeal the law, so that no one might be corrupted by his evil example.
He married another woman, and shortly afterwards left her a widow with a hundred million dollars. Needless to say, such widows are not left very long to mourn; Mrs. Flagler espoused a certain Judge Bingham, a leading citizen of Kentucky. A pre-nuptial contract barred him from inheriting her estate; nevertheless she managed, eight months after their wedding, and six weeks before her death, to present to him a trifling matter of five million dollars. Then she died, and he, being lonely, and in possession of spare cash, looked around for something to play with. He decided to play with you—that is, with a newspaper!
There was an old newspaper in Louisville, the “Courier-Journal,” which had been made by the genius of Col. Henry Watterson, a picturesque old-style Democrat, a radical of the Jeffersonian type, who stormed with vivid and diverting ferocity at the “robber barons” of Wall Street. The paper had got into financial difficulties, owing to family quarrels of the owners, and Judge Bingham bought it, with its evening edition, the “Louisville Times,” for something over a million dollars. Col. Watterson was to stay as “Editor Emeritus”; that is, he was to be a figurehead, to blind the public to the sinister realities of modern capitalism. But modern capitalism is too greedy and too ruthless a force for the old-style gentleman of the South; Col. Watterson could not stand the editorial policy of his new owner, so he quit, and today the “Courier-Journal” challenges the “Los Angeles Times” as an organ of venomous reaction. I quote one sample of its editorials—the subject being that especially infamous variety of pervert known as the “Christian Socialist clergyman.” Behold him!—
Some person who has never worked in his life—except his tongue—and yet talks to his “congregation” about problems of workingmen. This rogue is sometimes an elocutionary shyster who rambles about the downtrodden—meaning his prosperous followers and, of course, himself—the expected revolution, the rights of the pee-pul, and so on. What he desires to do is to heroize himself, to appear to his pee-pul as a courageous leader against oppression; which is to say, against the law and the Government which protect this people in the possession of their homes, automobiles and liberties.
Col. Watterson resigned. But as a rule the professional journalist pockets his Brass Check, and delivers the goods to his master in the silence and secrecy of the journalistic brothel. A professional journalist may be defined as a man who holds himself ready at a day’s notice to adjust his opinions to the pocket-book of a new owner. I have heard Arthur Brisbane remark that the “New York Times” was sold on several occasions, and on each occasion its “editor” was sold with it. Yet when you read this “editor’s” preachments, they are all so solemn and dignified, high-sounding and moral—you would never dream but that you were reading actual opinions of a man!
Quite recently we saw the “New York Evening Post” put up on the journalistic bargain-counter. I have told how the “Evening Post” treated me at various times, so you will see that the paper was hardly to be classified as “radical.” But during the war it became treasonable to the gigantic trading corporation which calls itself the British Government; it persisted in this stubborn course, even when it knew that J. P. Morgan & Company were selling billions of British bonds, and handling all the purchases of the British Government in America. When the Bolsheviki gave out the secret treaties of the Allies, the “Evening Post” was the one non-Socialist newspaper in America which published them in full. So it was evident that something must be done, and done quickly, about the “Evening Post.”
The paper was in financial difficulties, because of the constantly increasing cost of material and wages. Its owner gave an option to his associates, with the pledge on their part that they would not take the paper to “Wall Street”; then, three weeks later, the paper was sold to Thomas W. Lamont, of the firm of J. P. Morgan & Company; the owner being kept in ignorance of the name of the purchaser. So now the “New York Evening Post” looks upon the peace treaty, and finds it “a voice from heaven.” “A voice from heaven” commanding the French to grab the Saar Valley, and the Japs to seize Shantung! “A voice from heaven” commanding the workers of Russia to pay the bad debts of the Tsar—and to pay them through the banking-house of J. P. Morgan & Company!
And if you do not care to get your opinions from the gigantic trading-corporation which calls itself the British government, you may read the “New York Evening Mail,” which was bought with the money of the German government! Or you may read the “New York Evening Sun,” which was bought by Frank A. Munsey, with part of the million dollars which he boasted of having made out of your troubles in the 1907 panic. If you do not like papers which are bought and sold, you may read the “New York Evening Telegram,” which has remained the property of the Bennett estate, and is working for the pocket-book of the Bennett estate, forty-one editions every week. In the morning, you may read the “Herald,” which is working for the same estate. If you get tired of the point of view of that estate, you may try the estate of Whitelaw Reid, capitalist, or of Joseph Pulitzer, invested in railroads and telegraphs, or of Searles, of the Sugar Trust. Or, if you prefer living men, you may give up your mind to the keeping of Adolph Ochs, of the Traction gang, or of William Rockefeller of Standard Oil, or of William Randolph Hearst of Eternal Infamy. This concludes the list of choices that are open to you in New York—unless you are willing to read a Socialist paper, the “New York Call”; and of course you cannot get the “Call” all the time, because sometimes the police bar it from the stands, and sometimes the soldier-boys raid its offices and throw the editors out of the windows, and sometimes the Postmaster-General bars it from the mails, and at all times he refuses it second class entry. So if I wish to get it out here in California, I have to pay two and one half times as much as I pay for the papers of the Searles estate and the Pulitzer estate and the Hearst estate and the Bennett estate and the Reid estate.
CHAPTER XXXIX
THE WAR-MAKERS
What is the moral tone in the offices of these great “kept” institutions? The best description I know of the inside of such a newspaper is found in an article, “The Blue Pencil,” by Maxwell Anderson, published in the “New Republic” for December 14, 1918. It is very evident that Mr. Anderson has worked in the office of some newspaper; he doesn’t give names, but his text indicates that the city is San Francisco. The name of the imaginary owner is H. N. De Smith, and if you are familiar with San Francisco affairs, you don’t have to be a wizard to make your guess.