CHAPTER XXXVIII
OWNING THE PRESS
The methods by which the “Empire of Business” maintains its control over Journalism are four: First, ownership of the papers; second, ownership of the owners; third, advertising subsidies; and fourth, direct bribery. By these methods there exists in America a control of news and of current comment more absolute than any monopoly in any other industry. This statement may sound extreme, but if you will think about it you will realize that in the very nature of the case it must be true. It does not destroy the steel trust if there are a few independent steel-makers, it does not destroy the money trust if there are a few independent men of wealth, but it does destroy the news trust if there is a single independent newspaper to let the cat out of the bag.
The extent to which outright ownership of newspapers and magazines has been acquired by our financial autocracy would cause astonishment if it were set forth in figures. One could take a map of America and a paint-brush, and make large smudges of color, representing journalistic ownership of whole districts, sometimes of whole states, by special interests. The Upper Peninsula of Michigan would be swept with a yellow smudge—that is copper. The whole state of Montana would be the same, and the greater part of Arizona. A black smudge for Southern Colorado, and another in the Northern part—that is coal. A gray smudge in Western Pennsylvania, and another in Illinois—that is steel. A green smudge in Wisconsin, and another in Oregon and Washington—that is lumber. A white smudge in North Dakota and Minnesota—that is the milling trust, backed by the railroads and the banks. A dirty smudge in central California, representing “Southern Pacific” and “United Railways,” now reinforced by “M. and M.”
Ten years ago there was a terrific reform campaign in San Francisco, and the reformers started a little weekly called the “Liberator.” I quote from one issue:
Many San Francisco weekly papers were bought up with cash payments, coming principally from the offices of the “United Railroads.” But this did not seem to satisfy the plans of the defense, and suddenly the Calkins Syndicate developed into a concern of astonishing magnitude. From the publisher of obscure weeklies and dailies, it established a modern publishing plant, and took over much of the printing of the “Sunset Magazine,” which contract alone brought the Calkins outfit several thousand dollars a month. The “Sacramento Union” and the “Fresno Herald” were purchased, and a bid made for the “San Francisco Post.” The syndicate failed to get the “Post.” The “San Francisco Globe” was started instead. Whatever money could do in the newspaper line, Calkins for a few months did. Newspaper men knew, of course, that the losses were enormous. The questions were, “Who is filling the sack? How long will the sack last?”
And wherever in America there has been an honest investigation, the same conditions have been revealed. The Calkins syndicate had its exact counterpart in Montana; or rather two counterparts, for Senator Clark and Marcus Daly, copper kings, were carrying on a feud, and each purchased or established a string of newspapers to slander the other. Now the gigantic “Anaconda” has swallowed them both, and there are only two newspapers in Montana which are not owned or controlled by “copper.” One of these is owned by a politician who, I am assured, serves the “interests” without hire; and the other is the “Butte Daily Bulletin,” Socialist, whose editor goes in hourly peril of his life. In Oklahoma nearly everything is “Standard Oil”; and at the other end of the continent is the New York “Outlook,” one of whose important stockholders was discovered to be James Stillman, of the National City Bank of New York—Standard Oil!
I have given elsewhere a picture of conditions in Los Angeles. In San Diego are two papers owned by the sugar-king, and one paper of the Scripps group. In San Francisco are two Hearst papers, the “Examiner” and the “Call”; the “Chronicle,” owned by “Mike” de Young, whom I have portrayed; and the “Bulletin” whose assorted knaveries will soon be set forth in detail. Also there is a monthly, the “Sunset,” formerly owned by the Southern Pacific, and now serving the anti-union campaign of the “M. and M.”—the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association which has raised a million dollar slush fund; also a weekly, popularly known as “the Rich Man’s Door-mat,” and a number of gossip-weeklies and “kept” political sheets. The “Labor Digest” has recently gone over with startling suddenness to the cause of capital, reversing itself absolutely on the Mooney case. The publisher, a veteran labor union official, recently informed an applicant for the job of editor that he was “running the paper to make money.” The applicant said that he favored the Plumb plan; so there was “nothing doing.”
Moving on up the coast, there is the “Portland Oregonian,” owned by the estate of a huge-scale lumber operator, one of the richest men in the Northwest. An employee of this paper writes to me:
He was so public-spirited and free-handed that the appraisal of the estate showed that he had invested to the extent of five dollars in war savings stamps and in only five thousand dollars worth of war bonds, and that under direct compulsion, so it was revealed, of his fellow-citizens. The “Oregonian” is born of corporate power, conceived for corporate purposes, and exists to do the corporate bidding, avowedly so.
Also there is the “Portland Telegram,” owned by the two sons of a timber magnate, who obtained most of his lands by the popular “dummy entry” system. The same informant, who once worked for this paper, writes me of these owners: