Or take the Nonpartisan League of North Dakota. All through the war the newspapers strove to make this appear a disloyal organization. The League held a convention at St. Paul, at which hundreds of speeches were made; and the Associated Press found it possible to make one of the speakers, La Follette, appear disloyal by misquoting him. So it featured La Follette—and reported the other speakers hardly at all. As this book is going to press, the League bank is raided, and the farmers by thousands come pouring into Fargo in the rain, and at two enormous gatherings they pledge themselves to make their bank the biggest in the state. The bank is reopened, and on the first day forty-five thousand dollars is put in and only nine thousand taken out. And how is all this handled by the Associated Press? Hear the “Idaho Leader”:
Several newspaper representatives from St. Paul and Minneapolis were present to send as unfavorable reports of the great meeting to their papers as they could, and the Associated Press, the news agency which supplies the “Boise Statesman” with its daily fables from North Dakota, evidently fearing that their local manager was not capable of falsifying in the manner which big business demands, sent a special representative out from St. Paul to report the meeting. And this “A. P.” representative did himself proud, or rather he did the bidding of his masters.
Among other highly colored and untrue statements which the Associated Press representatives made was that “when the speaking was ended in the auditorium and a recess taken before the evening meeting, the crowds made a rush for the doors to get away so that they would not have to subscribe for stock in the Scandinavian bank!”
The crowd did make a rush but it was not for the doors. The crowd rushed, jostled, and pushed, in the anxiety of dozens of men to reach the front of the building, where a number of persons took subscriptions for stock. Those handling the subscriptions were swamped, and many men were forced to stand in line for a long time before they were waited on.
CHAPTER LX
THE CASE OF RUSSIA
But the perfect case of journalistic knavery, the case which in the annals of history will take precedence over all others, past or present, is the case of Russia. You might say that all previous experience of the capitalist press of America in perverting and distorting news was but training for what it was to do to the Russian revolution. Say to yourself as follows: American Journalism did thus and so to an American author who advocated the abolition of privilege and exploitation; what would this Journalism do to a hundred and eighty million people who rose up and actually put an end to privilege and exploitation upon the half of two continents?
Let me make clear at the outset my point of view, oft repeated. I am not a Bolshevik, and have never been a Bolshevik. I understand that a Bolshevik is one who repudiates political action, and wishes to accomplish the social revolution by mass action of the proletariat, the direct overthrow of our present capitalist government and the setting up of a government by councils of the workers, something corresponding to our present trade union councils and conventions. For my part, I agree with the syndicalists in thinking that the best way to govern industry is through trade unions; that is the only real industrial democracy. But I believe that the trade unions can get this power by the ballot, backed by the mass strike. I don’t believe that it will be necessary for the workers to seize guns and turn the politicians out of office; I believe that they can elect their own politicians, or force even capitalist legislatures pass laws recognizing union control of industry.
I am well aware that this method will be slower, but I believe it will be quicker in the long run, because it will avoid the waste incidental to civil war, and the possibilities of failure and temporary reaction. Anybody can see that, as a matter of business, it would pay the workers better to continue working for the capitalists a few months or even a few years longer, than to take a course which might result in burning down the factories and getting the best leaders of the movement stood up against a wall and shot.
But such a program, of course, can be effective only in a country where political rights are recognized. Russia was not such a country. The Russian people had been held down by an utterly ruthless and utterly corrupt despotism, deprived of all opportunity to organize and to educate themselves, to acquire experience in government affairs; so, when they rose, they turned upon their oppressors the weapons they had been taught to understand. We, who were born in a more fortunate land, and have learned to use, if only half successfully, the ballot and public discussion in the settlement of our affairs—what attitude were we to take towards the Russian people, striking out blindly against their oppressors, groping for liberty and life?
The first revolution, the Kerensky revolution, was a political one, and that suited us fairly well; it made no threat against property, and it proposed to support our war. Our capitalist newspapers had no difficulty in getting the news about it, and had no objection to letting us read this news. But then came the second revolution, the Bolshevik revolution, and that did threaten property, and proposed to withdraw from our war. How did we treat that?