The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1920-04-30

have to take the elder Pulitzer's
high ideals from the head of their
editorial columns. And what is
more, l am going to do it. l haven't
been studying the newspaper game
and the public all these years for
nothing. The principle of wanting
to do right is deeply imbedded in
every normal human heart and it
will respond in the right way at
the right time.
l am going to take the matter up
with every daily newspaper in New
York City, and if they all turn it
down am going to print little
daily and sell it myself on the streets
of New York as did the elder James
Gordon Bennett when he founded
the New York Herald. l know some
union printers who will help me do
it.
The New York World made the
mistake of printing the Hadley let
ter favoring Mr. Hoover. AS soon as
the editor of Automobile Topics, a
big New York trade publication,
read the World article, and heard
that Mr.. Hoover had not answered
the petition of the union printers
he said: you've got them in a
hole. More power to you" l don't
want to get anyone in hole, but l
do want everyone to try to do what
is right.
l have forgotten just how the old
story about the fight between the
man and the bear goes, but the ed
itor of The Commercial doubtless
remembers it, as Obion County,
where The Commercial is published,
is the old hunting ground of Davy
Crockett, and you may promise your
readers that New York City and the
whole country is going to see one
of the prettieSt political fights this
year we have had in long time.
/ am mailing a copy of this letter
to various individuals and publica-
tions. / am not expecting such pub
locations as the New York Times or
Commerce and Finance, which even
refused to publish advertisements of
my economic theory, to publish this
letter, but you may be sure they
will all read 1t, and it will weaken
their morale. 1t will do more good
than any other weapon of offense
by reason of the fact that the truth
once disseminated never loses any
ground.
If you want to know how rotten
most of the big daily newspapers are
becoming read Living Journalism
and Poison that Kills" in Editor and
Publisher of April 3.
In conclusion l wish to say that
profiteering is the chief and almost
the whole cause of industrial ills.
If we use our thinking tank on the
idea that managers of industrial en-
terprises should state in advance a
rate of compensation with which
they will content themselves we see
that this would effectively stop prof
iteering in all of it's forms because
it would reduce the profit taker to
the same basis in the industrial game
as that occupied by all other factors,
and automatically institute free and
open competition with equal oppor-
tunity for all, and put an end to
the unearned increment.
But Just another incident l must
tell you about. During the printers
strike last October l did some work
for an addressing concern and spent
one day in the office of ]. P. Morgan
& Co., Wall and Broad streets. We
got just $1.75 apiece for our days
work. The concern for which we
worked got five dollars or more for
each man they supplied to do the
work for Mr.. Morgan. It's such in
cidents as these that will wake the
public up. and l have hundreds of
others like this to relate. l have
worked at dozens of petty jobs like
this during the past few years just
to find out "How the Other Half
Live" as Jacob Riis put it in his
admirable book.