Mr. Anderson portrays one after another of the staff of the paper: the managing editor, the assistant managing editor, the city editor, the copy reader, the reporter, the dramatic critic, the artist, the designer, the copy boy. Every one of these persons is a slave with a chain about his neck; everyone of them clearly understands that his function in life is to subserve the glory of his owner.
They think unkindly of Hank De Smith; they speak derisively of his park, his policies, and the amount he is supposed to drink up in a day. But they obey him. Pasted before each man is a typed schedule of prejudice, known technically as the son-of-a-bitch list, and consisting of the names of men who must be given no free publicity. Here all prominent radicals and the business men who have refused to advertise in the paper are lumped in an eternal obloquy of silence.
“Refer to Dealer
“Any copy containing name of: ............., ............., ............., .............,
“Names Not to Appear in Headlines: ............., ............., ............., .............
“Use Title of ‘Mr.’
“Only in connection with H. N. De Smith.”
What smouldering envies or balked ambitions may lie behind this absurd catalogue they do not know. But when this same De Smith buys a block of charity stock, as a matter of course they run headlines across the second title page to inform the city of it
“Praise Hank, from whom all blessings flow,” the tall and heavy Texan sneers gravely.
And here is the assistant managing editor; I have interviewed such a managing editor as this, not once, but fifty times; and not only in San Francisco, but in a score of other American cities: