The Labor enquirer., 1884-03-08
FREE THE WRITERS.
An Old Journalists Plea for Free
dom--The Vast Army Of
the Beheaded.
How the Regulations Of Editors
are Stolen by Their En-
ployers.

go. I-NJ ie-.5. .--aa' 80
From John Swinton's Paper. 4
"Free the writer's The tyranny of
the times can receive no greater blow"
In these words you have uttered a
deathless truth; have struck at the
meanest and greatest of all monopolies
the monopoly Of brains.
What are our great newspapers but
monstrous mills in which each one who
grinas gives himself up body. brain and
name, to be known as an individual no
more forever? i.t" 5f ?
On the big dallies, which represent
the hard and tireBome labor of a small
army, only one man, the owner, reaps
the rewards in money and fame. He
may be infwior to many of his subor-
dinates, but he is armed with power,
because he is armed with money, and
swallows all that rightfully belongs to a
score. s.. i.
This system, imported from aristo-
cratic england" is infamous. Here in
New York it has reached gigantic, al
most ineradicable growth. The writers
are blotted out Of existence, 30 far as
their individuality is concerned. y They
are as effectually robbed of their capital
as they would be if their employer, in
the guise of a garroter, knocked them
down and possessed himself of their
hoard of cash. What is writer's capi-
tai but his name? 1t represents, or
should represent, what he has done. He
is entitled to his own individuality. 1t
should be unlawful to deprive him of it,
What would be said of the president
who made his cabinet nameless? or the
military commander who compelled his
staff to be known only as his attaches?
or the book publisher who hired men
and women of brains 10 write books and
then publish them as his own?
Ispeak with feeling, for l have suffer-
ed from this phase of "the tyranny of
the times" / do not mean simply that
l have suffered in my pride or vanity
from having been cheated out of my
rightful reputation; but I have almost
suffered for bread from having been re-
duced to a nameless auxiliary, who,
when his work was done, could look
back and see none of his own footprints
on the rugged road over which he had
travelled. have been cipher, not a
figure The cipher is not counted by
itself, but it helps the figures.
After years of hard work, which brought
both fam and profit to my employer and
only a living salary to me, l found myself
out of situation. The wheel of fortune
suddenly lurched, and brought unex-
pected changes to many. s,-''.
l had been SO busy at my desk, 80 in
terested in my work, and had lived 30
closely within the little circle compris-
ing our staff, that when 1 stepped
outside and began to look about me for
place that 1 could fill, felt like ship
wrecked man on strange shore. Be-
yond the few journalists of my own city,
nobody knew me. Even the editors of
neighboring cities had never heard of
me. Yet l had been many years in the
harness, and had seen the products Of
my pen flying all over the country from
Maine to California, credited to the dis
tinguished head of the paper that en-
ployed me. I had worked unremit-
tingly; had toiled while he talked; had
been the manager in his absence, the
ceaseless worker. Yet all this counted
as nothing to me when I went to a
western city to seek employment. 1 sup
pose need not tell that my remunera-
ton had not been enough to secure me
from anxiety when L found myself
"out!"
never knew that l was injured by
the complete burial of my identity until
1 needed employment elsewhere. Then
1 understood that he who filches from
me my rlghtful reputation has taken
what has enriched him and left me poor
indeed. .. ".
knew what 1 could do and what l
had done; but could not point to it as
evidence of my ability, because it had
been engulfed in the mill where had
ground, and the mill was known by one
mans name only.
I almost heard the bowling menace of
the hungry wolf before I got chance to
work. Since then it has been as before.
l am only one of the thinkers bought by
a big newspaper. In exchange give
my talents, time and name. am a
working, thinking cipher in the general
army of the beheaded.
You say, aWho are the men known in
America? They are men of place, men
money-net men, of IDEAS" Yet ideas
are the creative, imperishable things of
the universe.
"Free the writers!" Throw away the
sponge which effaces their names while
it absorbs their brains.
In France each person who handles a
pen builds his own fame and fortune,
and not anothers, and the papers suffer
no disadvantage from it. As matter Of
fact, it is always an advantage. The
personality of writer always becomes