One day you read in the “Times” that the “Examiner” is dressing up agents as soldiers, and circulating slanders against the “Times.” Next day there begins in the “Examiner” a series of cartoons of Harry Andrews, managing editor of the “Times,” representing him in grotesque and disgusting positions. Next day you read in the “Times” that William Bayard Hale, a former correspondent of the “Examiner,” is charged with having taken German money. Next day you read in the “Examiner” that Harry Carr, assistant managing editor of the “Times,” has been shown to have had his travelling expenses in Germany paid by the German government; also that Willard Huntington Wright, former literary editor of the “Times,” is accused of having taken German money. Next day you read in the “Examiner” that the mayor of Los Angeles has been indicted upon a charge of taking bribe-money from negro brothel-keepers, and that his chief confederate is Horace Karr, former political editor of the “Times.” Next day you read in the “Times” about this same Horace Karr—only he isn’t a former political editor of the “Times,” he is a former reporter for the “Examiner”! This particular civic scandal is spread over a page of both papers for a month, the “Examiner” playing it up, the “Times” playing it down, both of them telling patent falsehoods, and both of them continuing, day after day, to describe Horace Karr as a former employe of the other!
One of the funniest instances of this rivalry occurred recently upon the death of Mrs. Phoebe Hearst, mother of William Randolph Hearst, owner of the “Examiner.” I made a study of the “Examiner” and the “Times” next morning. The “Examiner” gave three columns on the first page and five columns on the third page to accounts of Mrs. Hearst and her virtues. There were two pictures, one a picture of Mrs. Hearst, occupying fifty-eight square inches, and the other a picture of “the family of William Randolph Hearst visiting their grandmother,” this occupying forty square inches.
The “Times,” of course, was not so much interested in Mrs. Hearst. It gave her only the amount of space which it would give to any California millionaire who died—that is, two columns. The picture of Mrs. Hearst occupied only twenty-four square inches, and the contrast with the picture in the “Examiner” was most diverting. The picture in the “Examiner” showed a magnificent and stately lady, some duchess by Gainsborough. How the picture in the “Times” originated I do not know, but it appeared as if the editor of the “Times” had said to his artist: “Find me a picture of the ugliest old woman you have on file; or better yet, get me a picture of a grim old man with a double chin, and draw me a woman’s bonnet on top of him, and a woman’s dress over his shoulders, and label it ‘Mrs. Phoebe Apperson Hearst’.”
Also there are three afternoon papers in Los Angeles—all three sensational, all three commercial, with hardly the pretense of a public policy. There was brought to my attention the case of Raoul Palma, a young Mexican Socialist of an especially fine type, who had earned the enmity of the Los Angeles police by persisting in speaking on the Plaza. They had brought against him a charge of murder, as perfect a case of “frame-up” as I ever saw. I spent much time investigating the case, which failed for lack of evidence when brought before a jury. But the city editors and managing editors of the Los Angeles newspapers, to whom I took the evidence of this “frame-up,” were not moved to any fervors. I was able to get one or two small items published, but I was not able to find a spark of human feeling, nor yet an ideal of public welfare in the management of the journals upon which I called. But suppose that I had gone to them with the news that I was about to build a new million dollar hotel in Los Angeles; or that I had purchased the Catalina Islands, and was about to develop them for tourists; or that I was about to start an airplane service up the coast!
Quite recently a great rubber concern has started a six million dollar factory in Los Angeles; and such ecstasies as seize our papers! Columns and columns, day after day; pictures of the wondrous structure, and of the president of the company—I think I have had the features of this pudgy little person thrust upon me not less than a dozen times! And his ideas—not merely about the rubber business and the commercial prospects of Southern California, but about the League of Nations, and the “Plumb plan” and labor unions and strikes and Bolshevism!
On the other hand, there is a movement now under way to organize the actors in the motion-picture industry in Southern California; and how much space does this get from the Los Angeles newspapers? On August 18, 1919, there was held in the Hollywood Hotel a mass meeting of members of the theatrical profession, to inform them concerning the meaning of the actors’ strike in New York, and to solicit donations for the strikers. Not a line about this meeting in any Los Angeles paper! And not a line about the strike of the moving picture workers which came soon afterwards!
Now, as I finish this book, the office of the “Dugout,” a returned soldiers’ paper, is raided by the Federal authorities. The editor, Sydney R. Flowers, served three years as a volunteer in the Canadian army, was twice wounded, and once gassed. He joined a veterans’ organization in Los Angeles, but found it was being courted by the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association as a strike-breaking agency; so he rebelled, and started a rival organization, and now the “M. and M.” plotters have persuaded the government to raid his rooms and break up his propaganda. It happened that I myself was present, and saw the raid, and half a dozen witnesses can testify to the condition in which the offices were left. At my instance the “Examiner” sent a photographer and took a flashlight of the scene; but then it suppressed the picture! As for the “Times,” it quite solemnly informs its readers that the war veterans wrecked their own offices, in order to have a ground of complaint against the government! It repeats this, in circumstantial detail, two days in succession!
This is a somber tale I am telling, so let us not miss the few laughs that belong. Some time ago I had a call from a young lady reporter for the “Los Angeles Record.” She was a very young lady indeed—just out of school, I should say—and she explained that Max Eastman had given an interview on the subject of “free love,” and would I please to give an interview on the subject of “free love.” In reply I explained to this young lady that as a result of previous painful experiences I had made an iron-clad rule on the subject of the sex-question. I would not trust any newspaper reporter, not even the most amiable, to interpret my views on that delicate subject.
The young lady argued and pleaded. She did her very charming best to get me to give her a hint of my opinion of Max Eastman’s opinion of “free love.” But I have become a wise bird—having had my wing-feathers shot out so many times; I gave no hint, either of my own opinions or of my opinions of Max Eastman’s opinions.
Finally the young lady said: “Do you ever write on the subject, Mr. Sinclair?”