The Palatka news. [volume] (Palatka, Fla.) 1905-1908, 1907-03-29
WIN. RANDOLPH HEARST
Is Biggest Demagogue Of Gen.
tury According to St. Pc
tersburG Independent.

> press OF tUlS STATE lldu strange us
ease. 1t was an attack of Hearst
ism. Each morning the victim:
would wait with expectancy the
coming OF the daily paper to ge
their bearings on the New York pO
litical situation. For Il while il was
as if the seat of campaign had beer
, fought, bled and nearly died in theil
espousal Of the candidacy of William
|. Randolph Hearst for governor OF
New York state. He was pictured
as the saviour of the country, en-.
dorsed as the proper man for presi-
dent of the United States, and in
other ways the people made seven
kinds of fools out of themselves in
endorsing the biggest demagogue OF
the century.
Hearst is no fool, mind you. He
spends with one hand hundreds of
thousands in exploiting himself as a
candidate for president of the United
States, and with the other hand
rakes in the coin coming from his
many papers, his newspaper success
made possible by the miles of news
paper publicity given him-same as
We are now giving him.
When he sent hireling into
Florida to defame the fair name OF
the state, he thought more of selling
ten or fifteen thousand copies of his
monthly magazine than he did of
inaugurating reform. ii reform there
need be.
Hearst has dug his political grave,
not only in Florida but in the whole
southland.
| If he must need write about Flori-
da, there is plenty of the beautiful,
the good, the noble, to write about.
! William f. Curtis, the most gifted
newspaper correspondent in the
world, has written pages in the Chi
/ cago Record Herald concerning Flor
ida. Mr.. Curtis didn't rake in the
muck for Inspiration he looked at
| the blue-vaulted heavens, drank in
the beauties of sea and of land, in
| terviewed intelligent men and wO-
men.
What Hearst discov cred in Florida
concerning peonagc was all matter
of court record Why should he
rake up cases where justice had been
satisfied. If he need matter of that
sort to make his magazine an emo
bling, hearthside family magazine (?)
why didn't he drive over to the
Criminal Courts building in New
York city, and revamp its records.
"There is so much bad in the best
of us, and so much good in the
worst of us, that it hardly behooves
any of us, to talk about the rest of
us. "
Yet, that word, hardly" is loop
hole justifying what we are saying
and will say. If the press and pub
lie will not defend its name from as
saults by persons of Hearst's ilk, we
cannot expect others TO do so, or eX-
pect self-respect from the others.
The same Hearst was accused of
melting the assassination of our be-
loved Mckinley. This is all a mat
ter of history. The same methods
employed in exciting weak minds to
violent deeds is employed in tie
peOnage article which appeared in
the current issue of his muck-rake
magazine.
The hireling did not come to Flori- !
da for truth. He came for a sensa-
tiOnal article. If We were to notice
the article as Il whole we would
point out paragraph by paragraph |
that the penny-a-liuer wasn't after
the truth. For instance, he said: |
inspected by state officials" The |
Independent had lengthy interview |
with Messrs. McLin and Bitch less |
than two months ago when they |
were here on a visit to the camp |
north of this city and the Largo |
camps. They were then making a |
county inspection. And they report
ed favorably upon each and every /
camp.
The most diabolical utterance by |
this magazine was that H. NJ. Flag |
Ter was the father of peonage in |
Florida and pictures him with an
inscription with words to that effect. |
We never met Mr.. Flagler, and he |
is losing no sleep over that fact, and |
probably will never see this article. |
aud if he did it would pass unnoticed |
But, after seeing Flagler's great |
extension work on the East Coast |
and visiting mis- camps, we rise to |
call Flagler mighty, the best friend |
of Florida, and philanthropist who |
is distributing his wealth now so as |
to do the greatest good to the largest |
number of people. He owns and |
controls the Florida East Coast rail- |
road, "a line of steamships running |
from Miami, and number of pala- |
tial hotels. Four shares of stock |
were given to friends so as to form a
directorate. The Florida East Coast
railroad was completed to Miami in !
1895. Few corporations, let alone
single individuals, would have had
the nerve to invest millions in an un-
known quantity as did Flagler. He
made the East Coast blossom as if a
rose. He built palatial hotels so as
to make passenger traffic for his
road. He cleared land and built
houses upon the land for settlers, so
that they might till the soil and
make business for his freight trains. |
No one knows whether Flagler's
railroad or his hotels, or his land in
vestments pays him or not. 1t is
nobody's business but Flagler's. But
the people of the East Coast hope
that he does make money, and that
he will live to see the elimination of
his gigantic plans.
In our next issue | will tell of the
work of the Florida East Coast Kew
West railroad extension. 1t is the
eighth wonder of the world.
Let us have more Flaglers. And
the state should honor Flagler as no
man has ever been honored before
and rise as a unit and rebuke the
slanderous Hearst sheets by act and
word of mouth. Do it while Hearst
is on earth. His hereafter has been
provided fOr.-St. Petersburg Inde-
pendent.
CURED CONSUMPTION.
Mrs. B. W. Evans, Clearwater, Kan.