Perhaps the most tragic illustration of this kind of thing was the “Chicago Anarchists.” There were one or two Anarchists among them; the rest were Socialists, perfectly innocent working-class educators, who were railroaded to the gallows by public hysteria, deliberately incited by the newspapers of Chicago. Finley Peter Dunne, creator of “Mr. Dooley,” was a reporter on one of these newspapers, and ten or twelve years ago he narrated to me some of the things he had witnessed, the most outrageous inventions deliberately cooked up. His voice trembled as he told about it. I asked him why he did not write the story, and his answer was that he had often tried to write it, but was blinded by his own tears.
The same thing was done in the Debs railway strike of 1893. Every act of violence that was committed was hailed by the newspapers of the country as part of a terrorist campaign by the labor-unions. Therefore the public permitted Grover Cleveland to smash this strike. Afterwards Cleveland’s commission of investigation put the chief of police of Chicago on the witness-stand, and heard him testify that the Railway Managers’ Association had hired “thugs, thieves, and ex-convicts” as their deputies, and that these men had set fire to freight-cars, and had cut the hose of the Chicago firemen.
It would not be too much to say that American capitalist newspapers sent Eugene V. Debs to jail in 1893 and made him into a Socialist. And now in 1919, when he is sent to jail again, they help to keep him there! On the day that he is sent to prison, they spread wide an interview to the effect that he will call a general strike of labor to get himself out of jail; and this interview is quoted by the Attorney-General as reason for refusing amnesty to Debs. But Debs gave no such interview. He denied it as soon as he saw it, but of course you did not see his denial, unless you are a reader of the Socialist papers.
The “Appeal to Reason” is preparing to have a suit brought against the Associated Press on this issue. It reprints a letter from Debs to the general manager of the Associated Press, written in 1912, protesting against a false story to the effect that the “Appeal” is suspending publication. This report, obviously a great injury to the “Appeal,” the Associated Press refused to deny. Says Debs:
Am I to infer from your letter that the Associated Press aims to deal fairly, honestly and justly with all people, to disseminate the truth, and taboo what is false? I happen to know differently by personal experience. If there is in this country a strictly capitalist class institution it is the Associated Press.
Pardon me if I give you just an instance or two of my personal experience. During the heat of the Pullman strike, when the Pullman cars were under boycott, the Associated Press sent out a dispatch over all the country that I had ridden out of Chicago like a royal prince in a Pullman Palace car while my dupes were left to walk the ties. A hundred witnesses who were at the depot when I left testified that the report was a lie, but I could never get the Associated Press to correct it. This lie cost me more pain and trouble than you can well imagine, and for it all I have to thank the Associated Press, and I have not forgotten it.
During the last national campaign, at a time when I was away from home, the Associated Press spread a report over the country to the effect that scab labor had been employed to do some work at my home. It was a lie, and so intended. I had the matter investigated by the chief union organizer of the district, who reported that it was a lie, but I was never able to have the correction put upon the wires. That lie is still going to this day, and for that, and still others I could mention, I have also to thank the capitalistically owned and controlled Associated Press.
You might think this a pretty small lie for a big organization like the Associated Press to bother with; but if you think that, you do not know the Associated Press. Hardly ever do I mention this organization to a radical that I do not hear a new story, frequently just such a petty and spiteful story as the non-union labor in the home of Eugene Debs. In Pasadena lives my friend Gaylord Wilshire, and I mention the Associated Press to him, and he laughs. “Did I ever tell you my story of York, Pennsylvania?” “What did you do in York, Pennsylvania?” “Nothing,” says Wilshire; “that’s the story.” It appears that he was on a Socialist lecture-tour, and the schedule was badly arranged, the trains were late, and so he cut out York, Pennsylvania, and on the date in question was up in Maine. But the Associated Press sent broadcast over the country a detailed report that the editor of “Wilshire’s Magazine” had spoken in York, Pennsylvania, had denounced the courts, had offered ten thousand dollars for a debate with Mark Hanna, and had been mobbed by the citizens of York!
You will say, perhaps, that this must have been a mistake. Yes, but how comes it that the Associated Press makes all its mistakes one way? Why is there never a mistake favorable to a Socialist? Why does not the Associated Press report that Gene Debs has rescued a child from drowning; or that Gaylord Wilshire has been awarded a gold medal by a chamber of commerce; or that Upton Sinclair has been made a bishop of the Episcopal Church for writing “The Profits of Religion”?
One of the most interesting illustrations of newspaper lying about Socialists occurred during a May-day meeting in Union Square, New York, a few years ago. It is interesting because we may go behind the scenes and watch the wires being pulled. It appears that police arrangements for this meeting were in charge of Chief Inspector Schmittberger, an old-style Tammany clubber; but he could not handle the affair in the usual fashion of the New York police, because the administration of Mayor Mitchel had ordained “free speech.” Schmittberger had his clubbers hidden in an excavation of the subway, ready to sally forth when the meeting gave excuse. But the meeting did not give excuse, and some of the policemen grew impatient, and sallied out without orders and started clubbing. My friend Isaac Russell, who was reporting the day’s events for the “New York Times,” was standing by Schmittberger’s side, and heard him shout to these unauthorized clubbers. Says Russell: