# History of American Journalism/Chapter 20

CHAPTER XX
JOURNALISM OF TO-DAY
VIEWS AND INTERVIEWS
ATTENTION has been repeatedly called to the fact that jour- nalism is a mirror of the times. It is a mirror of the people in general, and the individual paper is a mirror of its subscribers. Arthur Brisbane in discussing newspaper work once remarked:
The newspaper is not, as Schopenhauer says, "a shadow on the wall," although many a newspaper is a mere shadow of what a newspaper should be. A newspaper is a mirror reflecting the public, a mirror more or less defective, but still a mirror. And the paper that the individual holds in his hand reflects that individual more or less accurately.
On this point the late Whitelaw Reid, when editor of The New York Tribune, said :
The thing always forgotten by the closest critic of the newspapers is that they must be immeasurably what their audiences make them; what their constituencies call for and sustain. The newspaper cannot uniformly resist the popular sentiment any more than the stream can flow above its fountain. To say that the newspapers are getting worse is to say that the people are getting worse. They may work more evil now than they have ever wrought before, because the influence is more widespread; but they also work more good, and the habitual attitude of the newspaper is one of effort toward the best its audiences will tolerate.
Arthur Twining Hadley, president of Yale University, prac- tically concurred in the opinions just noted when he wrote:
If we are to have responsible newspapers, the reform must begin with the readers themselves. Most of the men who edit newspapers will give the people the kind of newspapers they want. There will, of course, be exceptionally good editors who will make their papers better than their readers demand, and try to educate the people up to a higher level; just as there will be exceptionally bad editors, who will make papers worse than the readers want, and be the instruments, whether they try to or not, of educating the public down to a lower level. But ​the average
editor will work for the average reader. He cannot be any more in- dependent of the man who buys his goods than the manufacturer or merchant can be. A manufacturer who refuses to produce things that the people want, because he thinks they ought to want something better, will be driven out of business, and so will a newspaper editor. People sometimes talk of "yellow journalism" as if the editors of the yellow journals were solely responsible for their existence. They are responsible to some degree; but to a still larger degree the responsibility lies with the public that will buy and read their news.
Other college presidents share this same view. While presi- dent of the University of Minnesota, George Edward Vincent declared:
The press is more than a business. It is a social service fundamental to the national life, exerting profound influence upon it. The men of the press must recognize the social nature of their task. If the press be a corporation, it is a public service corporation with all of the social responsibility that this implies. The American press reflects the life of all of us, and it affects the life of all of us. We must all share the com- mon task of raising slowly, steadily, courageously this life to a higher level of truth, of justice, of good will. We, the people, make the press what it is. The press can help us to make it and all our national in- stitutions more nearly what they should be.
Those who maintain that the newspaper has outgrown the looking-glass stage, and should be developed along lines of community interest, overlook the fact that the paper which devotes its energies to community welfare is but reflecting the trend of the times. The old-fashioned church, open only on Sun- day, has in many communities become the institutional church which not only preaches, but also practices the ideals of its Founder. The American university is taking the torch of learn- ing from its academic seal and using it to light its halls at night for the instruction of those unable either on account of the time or money to take the regular course.
SUPPRESSION OF NEWS
The charge most often brought against the newspaper to-day is that it suppresses news because it fears certain powerful ad- vertisers. This charge is quite different from that of giving free publicity to advertisers in the news columns. Oswald Garrison ​
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Villard, of The New York Evening Post, has testified that the newspaper upon which he worked in Philadelphia used to send him to its large advertisers with the statement that "they could have as much space in news columns at any time as they wanted." Undoubtedly, such a condition too often existed during the Pe- riod of Financial Readjustment. No such condition, however, obtains to-day. On the other hand, the first charge deserves care- ful consideration. There has been in a few cities a suppression of news because of fear of advertisers, but it has always been fraught with great danger to the local press. Mr. Villard has admitted that the press of Philadelphia "has never recovered from the blow to its prestige when it actually refused to tell the story of a crime of the member of one of the large drygoods houses." Yet this omission proved the impossibility of suppressing news, for the story appeared in New York papers which sold rapidly in the streets of Philadelphia. The story was taken up and told all over the country through the pages of the monthly magazines and the literary weeklies. The suppression of the news did more harm to innocent members of the firm than had the Philadel- phia papers given a whole edition to the story of the crime. The publicity given this incident would indicate that such sup- pressions are rare.
A controversy arose later between this same mercantile estab- lishment and the city of Philadelphia over the question of fire prevention appliances, etc., required by city ordinances: it came from a movement started by the Alumnae Committee of Bryn Mawr College which was studying fire prevention in factories, shops, and stores where women and girls were employed. The Bryn Mawr Committee once complained that it had wrestled in vain with the Philadelphia papers to take the matter up and that the local press had refused to mention the store save in the way of kindness. The press of Philadelphia again received rebuke at the hands of publications of national circulation. In comment- ing on the incident, The Outlook, of New York City, called at- tention to the serious social danger from the muzzling of the newspaper by powerful advertisers.
A letter from the manager of the Philadelphia store to the present writer said: ​
Do you mind if we say we feel the condition to which you allude has been represented, we think, in an unfair way?
Unquestionably, the firm was treated unfairly by local papers which suppressed news to which the public was legitimately en- titled. In justice to the firm it must be admitted that there were extenuating circumstances which if the Philadelphia papers had recorded would have put the firm before its patrons in quite a different light for the Bryn Mawr Alumnae knew how to bring pressure upon charge customers.
Another paragraph of the letter from the manager of the store ought to be quoted:
The matter has been settled amiably and completely by the city authorities of Philadelphia and ourselves, as you, doubtless, observed from the reports of the papers.
The present writer did observe those reports, not merely in papers published outside of Philadelphia, but also in those of that city.
Yet Philadelphia, strange as it may seem, furnishes the honest and conscientious editor with positive proof that readers will not stand any interference on the part of the advertiser in an at- tempt to control editorial policies. During the heat of the Presi- dential Campaign of 1912, the page advertisement of a depart- ment store, a rival of the one to which reference has just been made, was withdrawn one Friday night from a Philadelphia newspaper. No intimation had previously reached its editor that such a step was contemplated and the action was unaccompanied either by word or letter to throw light upon the subject. Adver- tising solicitors were instructed to make no inquiry as to the cause of the discontinuance of the advertisement. The editor instructed the staff to make no explanations or comments about the matter. He then left for his old home to visit his mother. He was absent about a week. Upon his return he was notified that the page advertisement would be resumed the following Monday.
The absence of the page for a whole week not only attracted much attention, but caused much comment. Readers of the paper thought that they saw in the absence of the advertise​
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ment an act of reprisal against the paper on account of its edi- torial attitude on national politics. Subscribers put their own interpretation on the disappearance of the advertising and in- ferred that the paper had been threatened with a loss of adver- tising unless its editorial policy on politics was modified. Let- ters and telegrams of protest in large numbers poured in upon the owner of the department store. Their writers threatened to refuse to trade at the store unless the advertising was returned to the newspaper. The advertising was sent back without any con- dition suggested or implied. The editorial policy of the paper was not changed one iota, although it may have seemed to the public that it was a little more vigorous than ever before.
In passing from Philadelphia to New York, the two stores just mentioned, for branches of them are in both cities, may again be used for purposes of illustration. When the first store opened in New York it wanted to give its name to the thoroughfare upon which its building was located. In spite of the thousands of dol- lars which it was spending for advertising the press of New York fought the change, although the store was only attempting what it might perfectly legitimately try to do. Later, the store at- tempted to free the sidewalks in front of its store from " cadets," "mashers," and all other groups of young men who follow the swish of a silken petticoat, as patrons of the store had been an- noyed by the insults of these good-for-nothing chaps. It was a fine thing to do. But some one blundered in making a request that any account of this activity of the store be suppressed in the local press. The request simply sent the account of the affair to the first page and put the firm's name in the headline. Other- wise, there probably would have been just passing mention. The store was again badly treated by the newspapers for it obtained undesirable publicity about a condition which undoubtedly ex- isted around other stores whose owners lacked the courage to take up the matter.
When the Bryn Mawr Fire Prevention study was seemingly lacking the cooperation of the Philadelphia papers, a New York evening paper The Evening Post, to render unto Csesar the things that are Csesar's sent a man to Philadelphia to make a quiet investigation and to discuss the situation with the Phila​
delphia store. A conference with the store was sufficient with- out publication to bring about nearly all the changes originally desired. To the unbiased critic it may seem as though the news- paper went out of its own local news field in going to Philadel- phia to make the investigation, but The Evening Post has ever had a high standard regarding its duty to the public.
George Creel, who was appointed by President Wilson chair- man of the Committee on Public Information, in a magazine article published in January, 1917, brought against the press of New York the serious and specific charge that the department stores "can exercise an absolute censorship whenevei they choose to do so." His general conclusion "The same condi- tion exists in every city large enough to have department stores" may be dismissed without further discussion because made without any proof to substantiate the generalization. His charge against the newspapers of New York, however, deserves careful consideration because it seemed to be supported by evi- dence based on the fact that New York papers refused to insert a political advertisement attacking the owner of the second store used for illustration. The article clearly implied that the rejec- tion of the advertisement was due to a fear that the owner of the store might withdraw his advertising. Mr. Creel, however, failed to explain why The New York Times rejected the advertisement in view of the fact that the store did not advertise in The Times and was therefore without a club to swing at the paper. The in- sertion of the rejected advertisement a copy of which lies before the present writer would make any newspaper subject to a suit for libel. Any man running for public office must assume that his life is going to be open to attack from all points, in order that voters may be properly informed to pass upon his quali- fications for office. Quite a different condition obtains in at- tacks made upon a man not before people for election to office. The New York papers in general and The New York Times in particular have refused thousands of dollars worth of advertising where the copy consisted of scurrilous attacks upon character.
For years critics asserted that the most positive proof that the department stores controlled the policies of New York papers was found in the fact that the greatest news story lying around ​
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loose was the fire hazard in these stores and that no newspaper had the courage to describe the conditions. Yet when conditions attending employment in the large department stores hi New York were publicly taken up at a hearing of the Federal Com- mission on Industrial Relations, the New York papers printed without suppression the facts brought out at the inquiry, not only about the two stores to which reference has been made, but also about all the larger stores of the city. t For some reason, doubtless best known to city editors, the following assertion by former Chief Guerin of the Bureau of Fire Prevention was omitted: "I must say that the department store managers are fair and ready to do anything within reason to correct existing imperfect conditions." City editors have seen no reason why they should attack fire hazards in department stores when worse conditions existed in many manufacturing plants. They were unable, in spite of several attempts, to arouse the people to the necessity of better working conditions and regretted that it would take a great holocaust like the fire in the Triangle Shirt- waist Factory to arouse the public conscience.
Not long ago the owner of a large department store failed La business. There was a pretty well founded rumor that condi- tions had not been just right at his store for some time. Because the New York papers did not give any publicity to the matter till the failure was a legal fact, they were accused of suppressing the news because of the advertising revenue derived from the store. Such critics overlooked the fact that such publication might have made the newspapers financially responsible for the failure. During the Panic of 1907 a New York newspaper printed a story that a certain business establishment was on the verge of bankruptcy. It was, and later failed. The owners brought suit against the newspapers and collected heavy damages on the ground that the failure had been caused by the publi- cation of the item. Courts, as Whitelaw Reid, of The New York Tribune, pointed out in his lecture on " Journalism" at Yale University, have been rather harsh on newspapers for publish- ing items of this character and newspapers cannot be blamed for the use of ordinary common sense in such matters.
One incident, unfortunate and distressing, has been tossed ​
about all over the country to show the control of Boston jour- nalism by the department stores. A woman who was shortly to become a mother was arrested at one of the stores on the charge of shoplifting: she was supposed to have secreted on her person goods taken from counters of the store. While being subjected to a search she was taken ill and serious consequences followed. Her husband, after the loss of the child, sued the store for dam- ages as he should and was awarded a verdict rather sub- stantial in amount. The Boston papers, possibly with a single exception, did not as they should not print the story even though the testimony was somewhat sensational. For some rea- son the wishes of the family have been overlooked in a discussion of the incident. If ever there was a just cause for requesting a suppression of news it was here. Such incidents do not concern public welfare and ought to be omitted from the columns of American newspapers. Had there been any miscarriage of jus- tice, there would be some justification for printing the item, but no such condition obtained.
In another city conditions were quite like those in Boston, only there had been several similar incidents, though less dis- astrous in results. A large store had moved farther uptown and with its larger quarters it had been forced to employ green detec- tives who frequently made errors. In fact, they made so many blunders that managers of other department stores went to the press with the request for publicity in order that the evil might be corrected. One newspaper publisher told the representatives from the stores, "You can't get publicity for such stuff in my paper, even if all of you withdraw your advertising." He was quite right, Such an incident does not properly belong in a book of this character, but has been inserted because of the promi- nence it has been given by critics of journalism.
Another Boston incident has attracted much attention. A certain department store in that city desired to unite its two buildings by a covered passageway across a city street. As certain legal technicalities interfered with the construction, the attorney-general of the State rendered an opinion that a muni- cipal permit was not sufficient and that special action of the State Legislature was necessary. The Evening Transcript in ​
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Boston printed the opinion of the attorney-general and the ad- vertising of the department store was temporarily suspended in the columns of The Transcript. Newspaper critics at once jumped to the conclusion that the store withdrew its advertising in an attempt to dictate policies to The Transcript or to punish The Transcript for not being more thoughtful of department stores. To these critics the thought never occurred that there might be other reasons for withdrawal of advertising. But even if the critics were right, the incident shows the independence of The Transcript and may have impressed the department store with its dependence on newspaper advertising, for it is now one of the most liberal users of space in that publication. Department stores simply cannot get along without the newspapers. The great newspaper strike in Chicago showed the dependence of department stores upon newspapers a dependence forcibly impressed by the loss of trade through inability to tell patrons about store bargains. Not until the newspapers with their store advertising appeared again on Chicago streets did business be- come normal.
OPINIONS OF ADVERTISERS
For some reason critics have not gone to department stores for information. A little investigation shows that department stores feel that they have not been treated squarely by newspapers. They assert that a man cannot have a harmless fit in their buildings without some account getting into the newspapers, while he may have as many fits as he chooses in a smaller store without a single line in the newspapers to record the fact. De- partment stores maintain that every time their delivery wagons have an accident the fact is made known in the press with the name of the store to which the wagon belonged printed conspicu- ously in the account, while horses attached to wagons of smaller stores may run away and do considerable damage with news- paper readers none the wiser about the event. Department stores feel that the newspapers might render a little editorial assistance in matters of public convenience and public safety such as a bridge joining two buildings occupied by the same store : they assert that the newspapers are unwilling to endorse such ​enterprises lest the charge be brought against them of being influenced by advertising. Almost every department store has its tale of woe about the lack of cooperation from newspapers in announcing the welfare movements started among employees. On the whole, department stores present just as strong a case against the newspapers as do the critics. Did not this condition obtain, there would be more reason to suspect truth in the charge that advertising possibly influences the news and editorial columns.
OPINIONS OF BUSINESS MANAGERS
Don C. Seitz, business manager of The New York World, has testified as follows about the charge that advertisers run the policy of the newspapers:—
I have been for twenty years in the business office of The New York World and I do not recall a half-dozen attempts on the part of advertisers to influence it, and of these attempts only one was a matter of public concern about which there were two very fair opinions. We did not accept the advertiser's view. It is some five years since I have had an advertiser ask me to do anything, even in his personal interests, unless perhaps to print a wedding notice, or the mention of some social affair, and in this I rather think the editors treated him more shabbily than if it had been some one else. Good editors are not interfered with on great newspapers. If they were, there would be neither good editors nor great newspapers.
Louis Wiley, business manager of The New York Times, in his address on "The Newspaper of To-day" has a long list of items which were published in The Times and which mention specifically department stores where omission might have been desired. The Times on several occasions has been absolutely fearless in printing such news. On a few occasions it avoided even the appearance of evil. For example, it refused to sell a political party several thousand copies of a certain issue containing an editorial desired for circulation among voters in an approaching election because it feared that readers might think that the editorial was inspired by party allegiance.
On this matter of outside dictation, General Charles H. Taylor, of The Boston Globe, once said:— ​
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I can assure those of our friends who are filled with the fear that advertisers and the interests will control the movements, opinions, and news of the prosperous and independent press, that they need not lose any more sleep over The Globe. Advertisers and readers alike know that they will be treated with absolute fan-ness by The Globe, because that is the bed-rock basis on which this newspaper has been conducted for forty years and it is the rule which will guide it in the years to come.
In the few instances where powerful interests, whether through ownership or otherwise, have dictated policies which were against the interests of the common welfare, the newspapers thus con- trolled have lost steadily in circulation and become useless even to their dictators because of lack of influence.
DICTATION OF EDITORIAL POLICY
Another charge frequently brought against the press, some- what similar to the one just discussed, is that outside financial interests frequently dictate the editorial policy. When Bryan was nominated for President on the Democratic ticket in 1896, there was great consternation among bankers lest his election should disrupt existing monetary standards and ruin the coun- try. While there was no concerted action, independent bankers holding notes of newspapers did have several heart to heart talks with editors and proprietors and threatened to demand im- mediate payment of financial obligations if Bryan was supported. Be it said to the credit of editors who conscientiously believed in the silver standard that they told bankers " where to get off," that editorial policies were not subject to mortgage or demand notes and that they would welcome the issue if it were presented. They said that they would publish the facts in the case for their readers and were positive that they could raise enough money through popular subscription to continue publication. In other instances editors informed bankers that a suit to collect notes might cause a reduction in the size of their newspapers, but they still had funds enough to print handbills stating the reason for change in form. No such drastic action, however, was necessary, as bankers soon saw that the chief asset of a newspaper was its independence. The newspapers which did change, to a certain extent, their party affiliations did so of their own free will be​
cause they believed, as did the majority of the voters of the country, that debased currency was wrong both in theory and in practice. Numerous editors stood by this principle in spite of the opposition of wealthy owners of the silver mines who likewise tried to dictate editorial policies. In a few cases, where bankers did insist that the amount of indebtedness of newspapers to them should be reduced, on account of business conditions, they were but doing what they were requiring of all borrowers the reduction in loans.
A large advertiser in a certain metropolitan daily did with- draw his advertising because the paper supported Bryan in his presidential aspirations, but later, on finding that he was losing business on account of the absence of this advertising, he tried to have it inserted again. The newspaper informed him very plainly in words to the folio whig effect: "You have tried to dictate to this paper through a threat of withdrawal of adver- tising. You need to be taught a lesson. You are now out, and out you stay for one year, that the lesson may be forcibly im- pressed upon your memory." Not until the year was up was he allowed to resume advertising.
PITILESS PUBLICITY
Whether newspapers should give full publicity to crime has been a frequent subject of discussion in periodical literature. No conclusive evidence has ever been brought forth to prove that such accounts increase the amount of crime. On the other hand, only the astigmatic or myopic person fails to see that publicity is a most decided deterrent of crime. E. W. Howe, when editor of The Globe, of Atchison, Kansas, expressed this idea very epi- grammatically, "The wages of sin is publicity"; Ralph Waldo Emerson knew whereof he spoke when he asserted, "Light is the great policeman." Unquestionably, great sorrow is brought to wives, children, and other relatives by the newspaper accounts of the acts of criminals. The duty of the newspaper, however, is plain: it must protect other wives, children, and relatives who will be brought to grief unless all forms of rascality are exposed and perpetrators of crime brought to justice. Pitiless publicity it must often be, but it is never heartless. ​
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But for the newspaper, crime and corruption would often ex- ist unmolested. A newspaper is a megaphone through which re- formers call a city to arms and improve conditions. Just as the physician seeks out a diseased organ, even though he has to cut through pus and false flesh, so the newspaper which lives up to its duty must lay bare the cankered spots of the body politic. There can be no question that the public should know about the vice and corruption in order to combat the evil. J. St. Loe Strachey, editor of The London Spectator, thus emphasized this point in his address on "Ethics of Journalism":
It is good to know, within reasonable limits, the evil that is being done in order that we may lay our plans and bring up our forces to check that evil.
When the Reverend C. M. Sheldon was editing The Capital at Topeka, Kansas, for a week in 1900 as Christ would have conducted a newspaper, he defined news as "anything in the way of daily events that the public ought to know for its devel- opment and power in a life of righteousness" and therefore excluded details of crime from the columns. In commenting on Dr. Sheldon's attitude toward stories of crime The World of New York City went even farther than Mr. Strachey in the matter of such publicity:
It is painful, but it is a fact that this world is a vast battlefield between good and evil. This being the case it is of the very highest importance that the armies of the good should have the completest, the most accurate and the quickest information as to what the armies of evil are about. The journalist is an officer in the Department of Intelligence of the Armies of the Good. And whether he is working for his pay or for a principle or for both or without any conscious motive whatever, or even with a bad motive, so long as he remains true to the fundamental canon of his creed "Publicity! Publicity! Publicity!" he is serving the cause of the good. Whenever from any motive, good or bad, he violates that canon he is a traitor to that cause, a giver of aid and comfort to the enemy.
LEGITIMATE 8UPPEESSION
The "reasonable limits" mentioned by Mr. Strachey impose an obligation upon the press not to fill its columns with filth and fraud for which there is no justification. In this respect American ​
papers are far more conservative than the English : not a single American newspaper begins to print with such fullness of detail the accounts of certain crimes and divorce trials as are found in the great London papers. Mr. Strachey commended very highly in his address the motto of The New York Times, " All the news that's fit to print."
Contrary to the generally accepted opinion, newspapers, even the most sensational, suppress much more than they print in the matter of criminal news. If suppression would serve the people as a whole better, the story of crime is omitted. One illustration, taken from an address by the city editor of a great metropolitan daily before a state city editors' association, will show how con- scientious is the city editor worthy of that title:
Since I have been in 1 there was a minister in one of the larger
churches there, a high-salaried man, looked up to by his congregation and the city at large and regarded as one of the brightest men in his denomination in the world. It was brought to the ears of a certain city editor not myself that this man had been guilty of immoral practices, and men were put to work to run the stories to earth. Those stories were proved, and if they had been printed they would have been the sensation of the nation for a few days. But they never got beyond the city editor, and for this reason he knew that to print them would disrupt that church, break up several families, and bring sorrow to hundreds of homes. So this is what he did. The minister in question was called in: the facts were shown him and a typewritten agreement handed him. This agreement provided that he was to resign his pulpit, quit the ministry and the city forever, and never again write or speak a word in public. The minister did all that. There was no publicity, and the church was saved, although shocked by the minister's sudden re- tirement. To-day he is living on a farm, a quiet, studious man.
Had this city editor suppressed the news, without the in- fliction of the penalty given, he would have been false to his trust. On several occasions where irregularities of conduct in priest and rabbi have been simply suppressed, offenders have gone to other parishes only to disgrace the cloth again. Had full publicity been given in the first instance, results would have been different and certain newspapers could have had a clearer con- science.
1 I have suppressed the name of the city for the same reason the city edi- tor suppressed the story. J. M. L. ​
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A paper full of the items suppressed for the good of the com- munity would cause a greater sensation than any which has yet been printed. Even the most sensational newspapers suppress many stories of crime in the interest of the public welfare. News thus suppressed is that to which the community is not legiti- mately entitled and shows not the weakness, but the strength, of the American press. Newspapers occasionally make mistakes, they are but human institutions, but on the whole, they serve the community well.
PRESENT-DAY ETHICS
In the opinion of the writer the ethics of journalism of to-day are higher than those of any other profession. What the press does is known and read by all men. It does not print one edition for one class of subscribers and another for another. The only exception to this rule was an editor in a Western city who pub- lished a somewhat sensational sheet. After the regular edition was run off, he used to "lift" the stories of crime and fill the spaces with reports of acts of kindness, sermons, etc. The sec- ond edition consisted of but one copy the copy which the editor took home to his aged mother. With this single exception, which really amounts to nothing except as an interesting inci- dent, every reader knows exactly where the paper stands. It may be on the wrong side, but it is publicly labeled so that no one is deceived. What other profession can say as much?
How The Bulletin, of San Francisco, California, practically unsupported, aroused that city to a realization of the corruption of the Ruef-Schmitz machine is a story too widely known to be retold here. But as The Bulletin had sent Abraham Ruef to jail and then asked for his parole, its readers could not understand the attitude of the paper toward the convicted grafter: to them it seemed paradoxical. In answer to a correspondent who was indignant that The Bulletin should ask that Ruef be set free, Fremont Older, the editor of The Bulletin, explained his change in view as follows:
I have asked mercy for Ruef because I feel that I did most to bring about his downfall. The Bulletin fought Ruef long before the rest of San Francisco woke up. I attacked him with all the invective I could ​
command and all that I could hire. I cartooned him in stripes. I de- scribed him on the way to the penitentiary at San Quentin.
I was vindictive, unscrupulous, savage. I went to Washington and enlisted Heney in the fight. William J. Burns came and I persuaded Spreckles to help us. At last, after years of a man-hunting and man- hating debauch, Ruef became what I had longed and dreamed that he might become a convict.
Then I said to myself: "You've got him. He's in stripes. He is help- less, beaten, chained. You've won. How do you like your victory? How do you enjoy the picture you have painted? Every savage in- stinct in your nature is expressed in the canvas."
Well, my soul revolted. I thought over my own life, the many un- worthy things I have done to others, the injustice, the wrongs, I have been guilty of, the human hearts I have wantonly hurt, the sorrow I have caused, the half truths I have told, the mitigating truths I have withheld, the lies I have allowed to go undenied. I see myself now stripped of all sham and pretense and self-righteousness, holding the key to another man's cell. If society will let me, I want to unlock that barred door and for the rest of my life try to get nearer the spirit of Christ.
In a letter to the writer of this book, Mr. Older enlarged still further upon this change :
I thought when I wrote the letter, and I think now, that we all ap- proached the graft situation in the wrong spirit. We believed that there was only one way to put an end to municipal corruption and that was by discovering legal evidence against the grafters, indict them, try them in the courts, convict them and send them to the penitentiary. We did not know we were dealing with a disease and that there was no more occasion for hatred and denunciation than there would have been if the city had become infected with a contagious malady, and we had led a crusade to eliminate it. But in those days none of us had any doubt that the jail was the only cure. That was because we had no background of human experience. We believed that men were either definitely good or definitely bad, and that men deliberately decided to be either good or bad, j ust as a young man would choose a career. So we proceeded on that theory and expended vast sums of money, time, and energy in trying to put the grafters in prison. It happened that the men who had been buy- ing privileges of Schmitz and Ruef were wealthy, and being wealthy were influential, highly respected, and belonged to our most exclusive social circles. Naturally, they did n't relish the idea of wearing stripes in a penitentiary. So they fought back hard and the conflict developed into a bitter war which lasted several years.
If we had used the money, time, and energy in making a quiet in- vestigation of the graft in our city, and had not stopped as soon as we ​
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thought we had sufficient evidence to convict, the work would have been more valuable. I think we could have secured more complete confessions from those implicated if we had given them to understand that prison punishment would only be resorted to in the event of their withholding any part of their corrupt activities. We could then have made a com- plete expose" which would have been educational, and would have had tremendous value to those who are interested in making our civic life cleaner and our methods more efficient. But we did the best we knew at the time. It was certainly a liberal education for me. Some of the others still fail to see it as I do. They cling doggedly to the jail and the prison as the only cure for evil.
UNFAIRNESS OF PAPERS
Still another charge brought against the American newspaper is that it seldom, if ever, prints a speech of any length unless delivered by the President of the United States or some other very distinguished official. Attention is called to the fact that the report often contains nothing except the startling, foolish, or inflammatory utterances of the speaker. A contrast is drawn between the newspapers of to-day and those of Greeley's time when speeches were often reported at length. Such critics, how- ever, fail to make a comparison of the sizes of the newspapers printed during these periods. The average New York newspaper is not much larger to-day than it was then, except for advertis- ing columns often it has fewer columns devoted to the news. Yet the number of men who make speeches in that city has multiplied to such an extent that a detailed report is now quite an impossibility. Very often, the words quoted of the speaker constitute the only new thing given in the speech, devoted for the most part to generalizations often much better expressed by others. The reading public, like the men of Athens, in Paul's time, is chiefly interested in the new thing and unless the new thing be said, readers prefer newspaper stories of deeds rather than those of speech.
In discussing a complaint of Professor Scott Nearing that he had not been treated fairly by the newspapers, The World, of New York, spoke as follows in an editorial :
It is always a pleasure to discuss journalism with an honest man who knows nothing about it. Professor Scott Nearing, for example, believes that most newspapers are biased or corrupt because they are not dis​
posed to embellish their pages with his long and not very convincing arguments against measures for national defense.
Nothing in this world is easier than for an excited individual to imagine that his failure to make a profound impression is due to some- body's prejudice or dishonesty. Many a humbug gets great space in newspapers for a season. Many a man of one idea figures briefly in the big headlines. But many a person profoundly in earnest is taken up and quickly set down again because it is found that, after all, he has no true message.
There is hardly a day that does not develop in some line of thought a man or woman, generally young, who has discovered that the inherited experience of the human race in its social and political relations is worthless. If the humdrum newspapers which deal in their ignorant way with life as it is and has been were to accept all these prophets at their self-valuations, this world would be more of a bedlam than it is.
Truth sometimes has to fight for a hearing, but never hopelessly. Folly and presumption are much more likely to receive hasty atten- tion. In most cases it is when folly and presumption have been found out and dropped that we hear of the unfriendliness of the press. Truth recognized and established presents no resolutions of thanks and throws no bouquets. Truth is the great silencer.
Professor Nearing speaks of journalism as a game, which it is not. Journalism is about as serious a profession as sober men ever engaged in. It has its eye upon the past for instruction and upon the future for inspiration guided by that instruction. We wish that Professor Nearing and all other reformers who are in a hurry could be similarly actuated.
POLITICAL ADVERTISING
A criticism brought against the newspaper is that it ought not to allow the insertion of advertisements which advocate policies directly opposed to those stated in the editorial columns. Es- pecially is this true of political advertising inserted by the party whose principles are not advocated by the paper. The justice of this charge is without foundation. It is a good thing for a Re- publican to read in his party paper the advertisements of the Democratic Party. The advertisement, being officially prepared, is positive assurance to him that its contents have not been col- ored or warped by the editorial policies of the paper: it is a yard- stick by which he may measure the accuracy of the news re- ports of the rival party. On the basis of sound advertising theory, political advertising should be given, not to papers of like policy, but to opposition papers; the advertising manager of a paper ​
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with Republican leanings presented the case squarely when he said to the manager of a Democratic press bureau who objected to the editorial policies of the paper in question : " Whom are you trying to reach, through your political advertising, those who are going to vote for Wilson, or those who are now thinking of voting against him? When you have reached your decision, remember this fact, our paper guarantees a larger circulation among those who are now opposing Wilson than any other paper in the city." To the credit of this Democratic press bureau, be it said that it used large space in the Republican sheet. Political advertising should be inserted not solely to reward papers for party allegiance, but to spread partisan doctrine where it will do the most good; it is for this purpose that people contribute funds to the campaign expenses of the great parties. It must be confessed that in the past much of this political advertising has been too personal and too bitter to be effective among intelligent newspaper readers. More and more, however, political adver- tising is being prepared on the same sound principles as those which govern general advertising.
EDITORIAL PROSTITUTION
Another so-called weakness of modern journalism is that edi- torial writers must on special occasions write opinions not be- lieved to be just and right because the chief -of -staff insists that these policies are those of the newspaper. Tiffany Blake, chief editorial writer of The Chicago Tribune, put the case in its proper light when he gave this justification of such work. He thought, when a writer was, on the whole, in sympathy with the editorial policies, he might, in minor cases, support certain measures with which he did not agree. Such conduct, Mr. Blake pointed out, was in keeping with the religious and political life of any in- dividual; a man in joining a political party does not necessarily imply that he supports every plank of the platform, but that he thinks that this party comes the nearest to agreeing with his views about the questions of the day; a man joining a church or religious sect may not agree with every article of the creed, but he chooses to become a member because this religious denomina- tion in its larger doctrines favors his views on matters of ethics ​
and spiritual welfare. As a matter of practice, however, an edi- torial writer on the larger dailies seldom has the disagreeable task of writing what he does not believe. A question is thrashed out at the editorial council and after a decision has been reached as to where the paper shall stand, the writing of the editorial is given to the man to whom the subject most appeals because ex- perience has shown that he can generally produce the most forci- ble and convincing appeal on the subject.
SIGNED EDITORIALS
This practice in editorial offices shows how impossible are the recommendations of William Jennings Bryan and others that editorial articles should be signed by the names of their writers. In thrashing out a problem at the editorial council different phases of a subject are presented by various members of the staff. The man who writes the editorial frequently accepts ideas from every member of the staff in his presentation of the subject, and he would be guilty of plagiarism if he should attach his name to the editorial. The editorial "we" is the real author of the edi- torial: the staff, through an individual writer, has spoken for the paper. Only where the editorial staff consists of a single member would there be justification for using Mr. Bryan's suggestion of signed editorials.
CHARTING THE NEWS
A distinguished educator went over a certain New York paper systematically for three months during which time he charted the news as follows: demoralizing, 2295 items; unwholesome, 1684; trivial, 2100; worth-while, 3900 or thirty-nine per cent, of the total. The New York World thought that the educator made out a fairly good case for the newspapers; that thirty-nine per cent, of worth-while news was up to the average quality of achievement in most human activities such as the preaching of sermons, painting of pictures, writing of novels, or what-not.
Other newspapers thought that the newspaper average of worth-while items was higher than thirty-nine per cent. The Evening Tribune of Providence, Rhode Island, expressed its views as follows: ​
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Nobody familiar with the legitimate objects of a newspaper, the ends which it very properly endeavors to serve, would argue that all items that are demoralizing or unwholesome in the sense that they have to do with the misconduct of human beings, with murder or robbery or arson or with worse, if possible, should be entirely ignored. It has been asserted, and with truth, surely, that it will be a sorry day for this or any other country when newspapers are forced to regard what is unwholesome or demoralizing as so commonplace, so much a matter of course, as to be undeserving of treatment as a matter of news, happen- ings not only of interest, but doings with which all adult persons should be made acquainted. There would speedily be formed a very false and wholly misleading conception of actual conditions of society and the state of k the body politic as it is, were all reference to what is demoraliz- ing or unwholesome suppressed. Comparisons by which progress in civilization and moral advance could be measured would be out of the question, of course. Such an ostrich-like procedure or departure would leave us in utter ignorance of existence and its environments; of the life that is being lived; it would tempt us to plume ourselves on virtues that we do not possess; on civic righteousness which is wanting. As for the trivial things of life, who shall draw the line between the important and the unimportant? A very wise philosopher has declared that "under God's mysterious dispensation there are no trifles."
LOCAL INFLUENCE OF READERS
Several writers on journalism have pointed to Charleston, South Carolina, as an example of where newspapers were vir- tually owned and controlled by a powerful social organization. Attention has been repeatedly called to how the newspapers of that city never report the balls and social activities of the St. Cecilia Society. Critics have overlooked the important fact that newspaper readers have moulded journalism in that city where there is a resentment against publicity, not only about the balls of the St. Cecilia Society, but also about weddings and other social events. Charleston newspaper readers have spoken in no uncertain terms about these matters. No evidence has yet been produced that the newspapers of Charleston have suppressed news to which the public was legitimately entitled and for which there could be any difference of opinion about its affecting the welfare of the city. ​
The assertion has been made by publicists that if the European countries had had newspapers like those found in America there would never have been the Great War of the World. Be that as it may, there can be no question that the permanence of the American Republic is linked by inseparable bonds to the inde- pendence of the press. No man has seen this fact more clearly than ex-president Charles William Eliot, of Harvard University. His conclusion, not that of one ultimately associated with the profession, but rather that of one who sees American life in all its ramifications, may well be the concluding paragraph of this book:
Another new and effective bulwark of state is to be found in the ex- treme publicity with which all American activities are carried on. Many people are in the habit of complaining bitterly of the intrusion of the newspaper reporter into every nook and corner of the State and even into the privacy of the home; but in this extreme publicity is really to be found a new means of social, industrial, and governmental reform and progress. There are many exaggerations, perversions, and inaccuracies in this publicity; but on the whole it is a beneficent and a new agency for the promotion of the public welfare. ... So new is this force in the world that many people do not yet trust it, or perceive its immense utility. In case of real industrial grievances and oppressions, publicity would be by far the quickest and surest means of cure vastly more effective for all just ends than secret combinations of either capitalists or laborers. The newspapers which are the ordinary instruments of this publicity, are as yet very imperfect instruments, much of their work being done so hastily and so cheaply as to pre- clude accuracy; but as a means of publicity they visibly improve from decade to decade and taken together with the magazines and the con- troversial pamphlet, they shed more light on the social, industrial, and political life of the people of the United States than was ever shed be- fore on the doings and ways of any people. This force is distinctly new within the century, and it affords a new and strong guarantee for the American Republic.
THE END