Mar. 2, 1919.
Dear Max Ihmsen:
The other night Mrs. Wagner, Charlie Chaplin and I, seeking light on darkest Russia, went to hear Max Eastman’s lecture. During what we thought was a very thoughtful and unimpassioned address, he made the statement that the press of the country was in a deliberate conspiracy to withhold or color all news from that country.
We all felt that he was unfair in including all the papers with those notorious offenders, such as the “Times,” from which one could expect nothing else. But the next morning we read an account of the lecture in the “Examiner” that was false from the headline to the final sentence, which said: “Only a scant audience heard the address.”
The lecture was not broken up by the police; in fact if there were any police present no one even saw them. The chairman announced that Mr. Eastman would speak on Russia; then Mr. McBride would tell them about their magazine; and then at the end Mr. Eastman would answer questions. The program was finished exactly that way, without the slightest interruption, and to the very sympathetic applause of some twenty-five hundred auditors.
Nor did Mr. Eastman insult the President. In urging the withdrawal of American troops from Russia—a policy vigorously urged by Hearst papers—he simply stated that there was a striking inconsistency between President Wilson’s words and his deeds; for when the President addressed his memorandum on the Marmora conference he assured the delegates that America had absolutely no interest in the internal affairs of Russia, and would not take sides; while at that moment he was commander-in-chief of an army that was at war with the Russians on two fronts.
Rob Wagner went on to explain that he wrote this protest “in the kindliest spirit”; and Mr. Ihmsen in reply expressed his regret, and promised to investigate the matter. You remember how it was with the express companies in the old days; they would lose your package, and promise to “investigate”—which meant that they filed your complaint away with five hundred thousand others of the same sort. Six months later I am preparing the manuscript of this book, and I write to Mr. Ihmsen that I desire to verify every charge I bring against American Journalism. Will he inform me if he has ever published a correction of this falsehood? Mr. Ihmsen replies that he has unfortunately overlooked the matter, but will be glad to publish a correction now. He does—the very next day! I wonder if this will seem as funny to the reader as it seems to me. Mr. Ihmsen brands Max Eastman in the public mind as a coward and a blatherskite, and for six months he lets that brand remain, though he knows it is undeserved. But then suddenly he learns that he himself is to be branded as a character-assassin; and so he makes a quick jump. But even so, he cannot be really fair. He gave the original story half a column; he gives the correction two inches of space, in a corner so remote that I, who read the “Examiner” every morning, do not see it until he sends me a marked copy!
A month or two after Max Eastman’s lecture came Louise Bryant, freshly returned from Russia, and gave one of the most interesting talks I have ever heard; and next morning not a line in any Los Angeles newspaper! The following evening she spoke again, and I came upon the platform, and called the attention of the audience to this case of newspaper suppression, and asked for funds to get the truth to the people of Los Angeles. Before I had finished speaking, money began to shower upon the stage, and the total collection amounted to twelve hundred and forty dollars. I interviewed the assistant managing editor of the “Los Angeles Examiner,” and he agreed to publish a report of the meeting, and allowed me to dictate a column to a reporter—of which he published two inches! A committee called upon the managing editor of the “Los Angeles Times,” and this gentleman not only refused to publish a line, but refused to accept a paid advertisement giving the news; incidentally he flew into a rage and insulted the ladies of the committee. The money collected at the meeting was expended upon an edition of fifty thousand copies of a local radical paper, the “New Justice,” containing an account of the whole affair; and when an attempt was made to distribute these papers among the shipyard workers in the harbor, the distributors were arrested, and the judge declared that he wished he could get the editors of the paper.
In connection with this meeting, there was a humorous incident which ought to be mentioned. Among the statements made by Miss Bryant was that the Bolsheviki had taken Odessa because the French troops had refused to fight them; several companies had gone over to the enemy. This statement was published in the “New Justice,” and was among those which the Los Angeles newspapers refused to admit to their columns. Louise Bryant had travelled all over the country making the statement, and almost everywhere the capitalist press refused to print it. But two months later came an Associated Press despatch from Paris; the Odessa incident had become the subject of interpellations in the French parliament—so at last the news was out that French troops had mutinied when ordered to fight the Bolsheviki!
Now comest the joke of the matter. To the Associated Press despatch, the “New York Times” added the following comment: