The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1909-06-08
w. j. Bryan Attacks Coruora.
tion-Owned Newspapers.
Says Editors Are Paid to Chic.
roform the Public.
CHURCH AND THE BAR
Also Are Given a Share of His
Denunciatfon.
Man Who Really Earns 500 Mil
lion Does Not Get 1t.

Kansas City, June S.-"The corpor-
alton has entered the field of Jour-
nailsm until now the constituencies
corporatfon-ow newspaper, in
stead of molding public sentiment in
regard to right and wrong, merely
sees that the blind public hears all
good and nothing bad about the
grasping company which backs the
sheet You cannot tell who the stock
holders are. These papers usually
are anonymous or of unacknowledged
ownership. They are owned by rail-
roads and franchise holding corpora
tions.
The corporation pays the editors
TO chloroform the public while 1t in
its greed picks the public pocket. You
cannot tell when you read an editor
ial how much it cost to put it there
for reading. It's the same way in the
news columns. The paper is paid to
distort the news even. Editors on
such newspapers have told me of be-
ing compelled to write editorials they
did not believe in. May the time
come when the soul question will en-
ter the newspaper business and when
an editor will refuse to write lie no
matter from whom it comes
Williams Jennings Bryan selected for
his Kansas City utterance in Conven-
ton hall last night a speech containing
the foregoing criticism of newspapers
which are used to mislead the public.
The title of his lecture was ''The Price
Fof a Soul" 1t was given under the
auspices of the local union of Christian
Endeavor. He spoke nearly two hours
to $500 persons.
Mr.. Bryan wore an alpaca coat, ges-
tured with a Japanese fan.
"The temptation to sell the soul
comes into any walk of life,'' said Mr..
Bryan. Christ understood the value
of the interrogatory when he propound-
n6 hot not hi
What shall it profit a man if he gain
the whole world and lose his own soul?'
The question of the accumulation of
wealth confrOntS us at the outset. A
man can honestly earn only so much
as measures his service to society. How
many men who. as the guiding spirit of
"a corporation, have accumulated hun
dreds of millions have served society in
Iproportion?'
Mr.. Bryan took up the soul question
in the field of law and said that the
time is coming when the lawyer who
frees a dishonest man knowing him to
be dishonest will get the same measure
of opprobrium accorded his client.
Ministers even, he said are prone to be
| swayed to a certain extent by the
money question, and are 1oath to de-
nounce the high class chamber of COM
merce gambler who sits before him in
a pew, because were that pew empty
the church would suffer by way of the
contribution box.
VIII not say t1ldC money Is the
root of all evil he continued. "But
1 will say emphatically that it is the
root of almost all. A man can earn
500 millions and do it honestly by
service to society. Thomas Jeffer-
son earned it. So did Abraham Lin
coin. But neither of them had 1t.
None who has earned it has ever
collected it. Those who earned 1t
were so busy earning that they had
no time to collect it. Those who col
lected were SO busy collecting that
they had no time to earn"