New-York tribune., 1918-08-08
Can Hearst Come
Back?
From Life
EX 7 HEN the Kaiser goes will William
. Hearst go with him?
Are William Hearst's works run.

Are William IIearst's works run
ming down? Will the collapse of his great
machine be by-product or concomitant
of the collapse of the great machine of the
Kaiser?
1t is very interesting question, to which
prudent folks will hesitate to run in with
answers. The current drive on Hearst is
pretty brisk. 1t is stronger, better founded
and supported, and harder pressed than any
similar assault that one remembers. 1t is
not local. 1t is not a fight with rotten cab
bages and bad eggs over a state munic-
ipal election. 1t is a fight about funda-
mentals, about vital matters of public pol
icy, in which the missiles that William has
to dodge extracts from his own papers
1t is the Hearst of nineteen fourteen, 'fif-
teen, sixteen and seventeen that the
Hearst Of nineteen-eight has to face
when he peeps out of his trenches.
For William Hearst got in wrong in the
war. Heaven knows why 1t seemed so
natural to any one not of German blood
to be right about it, with all he was and
all he had, from the day the first German
soldier crossed the Belgian line! And it
was not only natural, but it was sure in
the long run to be popular How did it
befall that William missed that road? 1t
does not lodge in memory what his papers
made of the first onset. Probably they
were horrfed, like every one else. Most
of the men who work for Hearst are human
beings touched by the same emotions as
the rest of us, revolted by the same
crimes, desirous, as rule, of the same ben
Tho
dergo is intelligent and far as known
neither mean nor harsh. Their natural
disposition and impulses are not suppressed.
but skllfully used to give wholesome variety
and substance to the great daily mass that
contains in it the suggestions that it is the
Hearst purpose to Disseminate Probably
the Hearst papers rallied as heartily over
the rape Of Belgium as anybody, but as the
war went on the purpose took shape and
grew and hardened to keep the United
States out of any position that was helpful
to England and to check the development
of power to help her if we should eventual
ly conclude to do so.
And of course denial of help to England
meant denial of help to all the Allies Stead
lily and sklfully from week to week and
year to year, through all the period of our
neutrality, Hearst played the German game.
nourishing and stimulating distrust of Eng
land and Japan, clamoring for rigid en-
forcement of neutrality rules against Great
Britain, making much of the need of mil
ltary proceedings in Mexico And when
neutrality ended he was strong for Amer
lean troops for home defence and for moth
ing else.
The evidence of all these feats is on the
pages OF the various Hearst organs Of pub
lie instruction and entertainment. There
is no trouble about finding it, The trouble
is to make the selections out of so great q
mass. "The Tribune has done that verv
we'll, and even put the selections into
pamphlets, so that the Hearst war record
may be conveniently examined. The Kaiser
bought newspaper here ("The Mail"),
and had it managed in the German in
terest To compare it's course under the
imperial direction with that of the Hearst
papers under Hearst's direction is very in
structive "The Mail" and "The American"
might both have been under Hearst man
agement or both under the Kaiser. for anv
visible difference there was in their ont
pourings.
Having done everything he could for the
German cause long as it was safe. Will
lam Hearst is now supporting the war and
the government of the United States with
a fury so exemplary as to suggest that he
is conscious of the need to let out his last
tuck If he is to save his journalistic hide.
we shall see if he can do it, He bet on the
haiser' and he is going to lose Can he
hedge enough to save his skin?
Perhaps he can He is very adrot per
son. He knows the newspaper business
He can make successful magazines. He
employs clever men, and is able to keen
them on the job. He knows how verv short
Is the memory of the great public and how
little average readers care for what
newspaper said last year Moreover. there
is doubtless an important body of readers
and perhaps of advertisers, who are in
sympathy with him, and have been all
along, and recognize his predicament. Per-
haps as publisher he will triumph over
adversely, perhaps even as q politician he
may do something again He doesn't need
to do the impossible, to fool all the neonlo
all the time, but only some of them from
day to day.
SO he may yet pull out of the hole. but
1t is deep. deep hole, and he is in it nm
70 his neck +. s. NJ.
Caste and Courtesy