The main force is the press. The big press cannot exist a day without advertising.
Advertising means money from big business.
And I believe that the American press by its control of public opinion can either fool all the people into restoring a world in which one-third of the nation will again live in economic slavery without sufficient food, clothing and shelter, or it can, if it wants to, bring out of this united effort against native as well as foreign Fascism a world approaching the Jeffersonian ideal. Jefferson was willing to let the press itself rule the country instead of merely creating the public opinion that rules. But Jefferson did not foresee that the American press which creates opinion and which rules indirectly would become almost exclusively a millionaire's press, or a corporation influenced press, or the medium of big business via its advertising, and therefore the corrupt press which serves private interests rather than the public interest. If America is to be bossed by the public opinion created by its press, if it is to fight and win this war, if it is to make a great peace, then it should know the power of the most powerful force which is abroad in this land. The press which attacked George Washington , which denounced him as everything from a traitor to a drunkard, was not a corrupt press.