The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism

by Upton Sinclair

Several years ago Jack learned, from one newspaper man and another, what he had often suspected—that the standing instructions in practically every newspaper office on the Pacific Coast were to give Jack London the worst of it whenever possible. Of course this meant no matter what the occasion, whether slamming his work, or wilfully misrepresenting his personal actions. And they only subsided, as I have said above, when they adjudged he had a bank account, and therefore must needs be less radical.

This trick played upon Jack London is a favorite one with our newspapers—to take some quotation, and put it in the mouth of the quoter. What a sordid man is William Shakespeare; he said: “Put money in thy purse!” What a vainglorious man is the apostle Matthew; he said: “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me!” What a violent man is James H. Maurer, president of the Pennsylvania Federation of Labor; he said: “Down with the Stars and Stripes!”

Mr. Maurer came to New York to tell the people about the state constabulary, a public strike-breaking agency organized by the big capitalists of his state. The big capitalists of New York wanted the same thing, and the big newspapers of New York were boosting for it, and of course ridiculing and slandering all who opposed it. At the Washington Irving High School, on April 19, 1916, Mr. Maurer addressed a public meeting and read a passage from his book, “The American Cossack.” The incident he read was a funeral; a Spanish war-veteran had died during the miners’ strike in Westmoreland County, and was being buried by the striking miners with military honors. Members of the state constabulary came riding up. They objected to these lousy strikers using the American flag, and ordered that the flag be lowered. The strikers refused, whereupon the Cossacks threatened to shoot unless the flag was lowered and furled. Maurer quoted them: “Down with the Stars and Stripes!” So next day the newspapers reported Maurer as saying, “Down with the Stars and Stripes!” The “New York Times” went farther yet, and reported him as saying, “To hell with the Stars and Stripes!” I quote Maurer’s letter:

Mayor Mitchel of New York ordered the school-board to investigate these charges at once and they did so. At the hearing twelve witnesses were heard. Eleven swore that I said nothing of the kind and repeated what I did say. One, a “New York Sun” reporter by the name of Lester S. Walbridge, contended that I had said, “Down with the Stars and Stripes!” but admitted that there had been much cheering at the time and that he did not catch all that I said. Three others wrote and telegraphed their testimony, all saying that I said nothing of the kind. Some of the witnesses were people favorable to the State Police. The verdict of the School-board was to the effect that I said nothing of the kind, but had simply told my audience what the State Police had said; that it was the State Police who said, “Down with the Stars and Stripes,” and not Mr. Maurer. A clear vindication.

The day the story first appeared in the New York papers, charging me with the flag slander, the story was used to stampede the New York senators into voting for the State Police Bill then pending, and it worked. Although I was vindicated, the story is still used; every now and then someone editorializes about it.

In my effort to verify this story, I write to a reporter who was on the job at this time. He answers:

As a matter of fact all the reporters were out getting a drink when Maurer spoke, and they took their version of what he said from the Real Estate Association’s provocateurs at the meeting.

In connection with this Maurer episode, there is a curious story which should be told. You remember “Collier’s Weekly,” a magazine “run on a personal basis,” and the many young writers who had been debauched by “Collier” prosperity. One of these writers was Richard Harding Davis, and you would have to hunt a long time to find a more perfect incarnation of capitalist prosperity and success in literature. It happened that Davis was at his country home when he read in the “New York Times” that Maurer had said, “To hell with the Stars and Stripes!” Davis flew into a rage, and drafted a telegram to the mayor of New York, calling upon him to use the power of the government to put down these preachers of sedition. He went to the telephone to dictate the message, and before he was half-way through, fell dead of an apoplectic stroke!

Ten years ago I produced in California a one-act play called “The Indignant Subscriber.” The editor of a great newspaper is found walking on the shore of an imaginary lake. A stranger invites him for a row in a boat—the “boat” consisting of two chairs and a board tied together, the “oars” being brooms. The stranger rows the editor out into the middle of the lake, and then announces himself as the Indignant Subscriber. “For twenty-five years,” he says, “I have listened helplessly, while you set forth your views on every subject under the sun. Now for once I mean to tell you my views on one subject—yourself!” So he speaks his mind, and at the end upsets the boat and swims away, leaving the editor floundering in the water.

Now I am the Indignant Subscriber, who has been taking the “New York Times” for twenty-five years. I propose to give the “Times” a taste of its own medicine—by writing some headlines and letting the “Times” see just how it feels. Here goes: