East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1906-10-04

Frederick Palmer writes the follow
ing excellent sketch of William r..
Hearst, democratic candidate In New
York, for Golfers Weekly:
No other American or equal celeb
rity is so little known personally as
our foremost champion of unrestrain-
ed publicity The character of Hearst
himself has been hidden in the shad.
ows behind the searchlight whose rays
he has so merclessly directed against
the affairs of other men. l. would
seem as if his adjutants by his own
connivance, had surrounded him with
an air of mystery in order TO wnet
public curiosity.
Long before Hearst was running for
office journalistic circles We're ask
ing: Is 1t Hearst or is it Brisbane? as
interestedly as the general public
was asking after the battle of Santa
go. Was it Sampson or was it Schley?
From one source you may hear that
Hearst is the sole creator of the
movement of which he is the head, as
the public generally believes; from an
other you may hear that Hearst 's
only the name for the billions which a
staff of brilliant and daring innovators
has used to conjure with.
His movement, at least, has reached
point where the time for scoffing
has passed. You may not dismiss him
with a breath from the pulpit or a
lawyerly quip of satire without flying
in the face of our system of govern
ment: for the test of political power
in the United States is votes. Hearst's
poll as an Independent candidate for
mayor showed that the propaganda of
editorials was taken seriously by vast
masses of people.
Nor was this merely a local and
sporadic demonstration. a year later
we find him a formidable candidate
for governor of the most populous of
our states, with his Independence
league in process of organization
throughout the union. He Is a strange,
new element that presents to us a
startling possibility. Hiss is the first
one-man party to have gained any
thing like a national headway in the
history of our democracy. His party
is Hearstism. and his party did not
make him, but he made his party.
His power has been gained purely by
advertising hipself and his propagan-
da in his own daily editions.
Where the ''Ycllow' Originated.
Yellow journalism was not the
product of inheritance or necessity
with Hearst. but of choice. His father
won a vast fortune by the same meth
DDS which the son has spent his life
and much of that fortune in attacking.
IL othcr words If a vast personal es-
tate had not been accumulated in a
way that our candidates principles
condemn, he would never have had
the sinews of war against capitalism.
George r. Hearst, a baron among the
California pioneers, made money so
easily that 1t seemed as free as the
elements to the only son who was
reared without restraint. william was
sent to Harvard, which is not proud
of him, and yet is loyal to him in the
official sense that it will not be a par
ty to his disparagement. From the
deans office you may learn anything
you wish about another eminent Har-
ward man, Theodore Roosevelt, but
nothing about William Randolph
Hearst However, inquiry at Cam
bridge and of the men of his day has
developed all the essential facts of
Hearst's university career.
He was not good student. By that
I mean that he did not study regular
ly or regularly appear in the class
room, while his work, as a whole, in
dicated dislike of continuous applica-
tion. Yet he had enormous power of
application for brief period. and he
was capable of learning enough of a
text book in a night to pass an exam
nation. This ability would undoubt-
edly have secured his degree If 1t had
not been that those spasms of energy
(Which later on were to manifest
themselves in a sudden descent upon
the Journal office at midnight with
an avalanche of sensational ideas)
took the form of escapades that made
dignified professors and college de-
corum the object OF ridicule.
Expelled From College.
In his second year he was expelled.
His old landlady will tell you that
while Mr.. Hearst was certainly very
mischievous, he was very kind to her,
and he was blamed for many tricks
with which he was not associated. In
fact. this was the plea which parental
intercession made before President
Eliot. The president said that his ac-
tion was due also to the --latest"
count. but also to an accumulation Of
evidence against Hearst as a promoter
of disorder from the very day that he
entered the university.
This amiable and indolent student
already enjoyed tableaux and he was
creator and leader enough to make
other men play the parts he set them.
Although he had not studied his les
sons diligently, he had read the news
papers diligently. His rooms were al
ways strewn with them, including
both the most sensational and the
most conservative types. He played a
conspicuous part in organizing senti-
ment in the way of fireworks and
torchlight professions at Harvard for
Cleveland in the campaign of 'S4.
When the wayward son came home
the father told him that II he would
not go to school he would better go to
work and learn how to conserve the
great fortune he was to inherit, which
is precisely what all millionaires tell