enough, are really more interesting because of the vast number of others
they incriminate. If two editors from lesser cities do not laugh in each
other’s faces, after the example of Cicero’s augurs, it is because they
are more modern, and choose to laugh behind each other’s backs. So, in
turning state’s evidence, I feel less a coward than a reformer.
What circumstance has led me to believe concerning the newspaper
situation in a hundred and one small cities of this country is so
startling in its unexplained brevity, that I scarce dare parade it as a
prelude to my confessions. So much of my experience is predicated upon
it that I do not dare save it for a peroration. Here it is, then,
somewhat more than half-truth, somewhat less than the truth itself: “A
newspaper in a small city is not a legitimate business enterprise.” That
seems bold and bare enough to stamp me as sensational, does it not?
Hear, then, the story of my _Herald_, knowing that it is the story of
other Heralds. The _Herald’s_ story is mine, and my story, I dare say,
is that of many others. To the facts, then. I speak with authority,
being one of the scribes.
I
I chose newspaper work in my native city, Pittsburg, mainly because I
liked to write. I went into it after my high-school days, spent a six
months’ apprenticeship on a well-known paper, left it for another, and
in five years’ hard work had risen from the reportorial ranks to that of
a subordinate editorial writer—a dubious rise. Hard work had not
threshed out ambition: the few grains left sprouted. The death of an
uncle and an unexpected legacy fructified my desire. I became zealous to
preach crusades; to stamp my own individuality, my own ideals, upon the
“people”; in short, to own and run a newspaper. It was a buxom fancy, a
day-dream of many another like myself. A rapid rise had obtained for me
the summit of reasonable expectation in the matter of salary; but I then
thought, as indeed I do still, that the sum in one’s envelope o’ Mondays
is no criterion of success. Personal ambition to “mould opinion,” as the
quaint untruth has it, as well as the commercial side of owning a
newspaper, made me look about over a wide field, seeking a city which
really needed a new newspaper. The work was to be in a chosen field, and
to be one’s own taskmaster is worth more than salary. As I prospected, I
saw no possible end to the venture save that of every expectation
fulfilled.
I found a goodly town (of course I cannot name it) that was neither all
future nor all past; a growing place, believed in by capitalists and
real-estate men. It was well railroaded, in the coal fields, near to
waterways and to glory. It was developing itself and being developed by
outside capital. It had a newspaper, a well-established affair, whose
old equipment I laughed at. It needed a new one. My opening was found.
The city would grow; I would grow up with it. The promise of six years
ago has been in part fulfilled. I have no reason to regret my choosing
the city I did.
I went back to Pittsburg, consulted various of the great, obtained
letters to prominent men high in the political faith I intended to
follow, went back to my town armed with the letters, and talked it over.
They had been considering the matter of a daily paper there to represent
their faith and themselves, and after much dickering a company was
formed. I found I could buy the weekly _Herald_, a nice property whose
“good will” was worth having. Its owner was not over-anxious to sell, so
drove a good bargain. As a weekly the paper for forty-three years had
been gospel to many; I would make it daily gospel to more. In giving
$5,500 for it I knew I was paying well, but it had a great name and a
wide circulation.
I saw no necessity of beginning on a small scale. People are not dazzled
in this way. I wanted a press that folk would come in and see run, and
as my rival had no linotypes, that was all the more reason why I should
have two. Expensive equipments are necessary for newspapers when they
intend to do great works and the public is eager to see what is going to
happen. All this took money, more money than I had thought it would.
But, talking the matter over with my new friends and future associates,
I convinced them that any economy was false economy at the start. But
when I started I found that I owned but forty per cent of the Herald
Publishing Company’s stock. I was too big with the future to care. The
sixty per cent was represented by various politicians. That was six
years ago.
It does not do in America, much less in the _Atlantic_, to be morosely
pessimistic. At most one can be regretful. And yet why should I be
regretful? You have seen me settle in my thriving city; see me now. I
have my own home, a place of honor in the community, the company of the
great. You see me married, with enough to live on, enough to entertain
with, enough to afford a bit of travel now and then. I still “run” the
_Herald_: it pays me my own salary (my stockholders have never
interfered with the business management of the paper), and were I
insistent, I might have a consular position of importance, should the
particular set of politicians I uphold (my “gang,” as my rival the
_Bulletin_ says) revert to power. There is food in my larder, there are
flowers in my garden. I carry enough insurance to enable my small family
to do without me and laugh at starvation. I am but thirty-four years
old. In short, I have a competence in a goodly little city. Why should I
not rejoice with Stevenson that I have “some rags of honor left,” and go
about in middle age with my head high? Who of my schoolmates has done
better?
Is it nothing, then, to see hope dwindle and die away? My regret is not
pecuniary: it is old-fashionedly moral. Where are those high ideals with
which I set about this business? I dare not look them in their waxen
faces. I have acquired immunity from starvation by selling underhandedly
what I had no right to sell. Some may think me the better American. But
P. T. Barnum’s dictum about the innate love Americans have for a hoax is
really a serious matter, when the truth is told. Mr. Barnum did not
leave a name and a fortune because he befooled the public. If now and
then he gave them Cardiff giants and white elephants, he also gave them
a brave display in three crowded rings. I have dealt almost exclusively
with the Cardiff giants.
My regret is, then, a moral one. I bought something the nature of which
did not dawn upon me until late; I felt environment adapt me to it
little by little. The process was gradual, but I have not the excuse
that it was unconscious. There is the sting in the matter. I can
scarcely plead ignorance.
Somewhere in a scrapbook, even now beginning to yellow, I have pasted,
that it may not escape me (as if it could!), my first editorial
announcing to the good world my intent with the _Herald_. Let me quote
from the mocking, double-leaded thing. I know the words. I know even now
the high hope which gave them birth. I know how enchanting the vista was
unfolding into the future. I can see how stern my boyish face was, how
warm my blood. With a blare of trumpets I announced my mission. With a
mustering day of the good old stock phrases used on such occasions I
marshaled my metaphors. In making my bow, gravely and earnestly, I said,
among other things:—
“Without fear or favor, serving only the public, the _Herald_ will be at
all times an intelligent medium of news and opinions for an intelligent
community. Bowing the knee to no clique or faction, keeping in mind the
great imperishable standards of American manhood, the noble traditions
upon which the framework of our country is grounded, the _Herald_ will
champion, not the weak, not the strong, but the right. It will spare no
expense in gathering news, and it will give all the news all of the
time. It will so guide its course that only the higher interests of the
city are served, and will be absolutely fearless. Independent in
politics, it will freely criticise when occasion demands. By its
adherence to these principles may it stand or fall.”
But why quote more? You have all read them, though I doubt if you have
read one more sincere. I felt myself a force, the _Herald_ the
expression of a force; an entity, the servant of other forces. My paper
was to be all that other papers were not. My imagination carried me to
sublime heights. This was six years ago.
II
Events put a check on my runaway ambition in forty-eight hours. The head
of the biggest clothing house, and the largest advertiser in the city,
called on me. I received him magnificently in my new office, motioning
him to take a chair. I can see him yet—stout, prosperous, and to the
point. As he talked, he toyed with a great seal that hung from a huge
hawser-like watch-chain.
“Say,” said he, refusing my chair, “just keep out a little item you may
get hold of to-day.” His manner was the same with me as with a salesman
in his “gents’” underclothing department.
“Concerning?” I asked pleasantly.
“Oh, there’s a friend of mine got arrested to-day. Some farmer had him
took in for fraud or something. He’ll make good, I guess; I know, in
fact. He ain’t a bad fellow, and it would hurt him if this got printed.”
I asked him for particulars; saw a reporter who had the story; learned
that the man was a sharp-dealer with a bad reputation, who had been
detected in an attempt to cheat a poor farmer out of $260—a bare-faced
fraud indeed. I learned that the man had long been suspected by public
opinion of semi-legal attempts to rob the “widow and the orphan,” and
that at last there was a chance of “showing him up.” I went back with a
bold face.
“I find, though the case has not been tried, that the man is undoubtedly
guilty.”
“Guilty?” said my advertiser. “What of that? He’ll settle.”
“That hardly lessens the guilt.” I smiled.
The clothing man looked astounded. “But if you print that he’ll be
ruined,” he sputtered.
“From all I can learn, so much the better,” I answered.
Then my man swore. “See here,” he said, when he got back to written
language. “He’s just making his living; you ain’t got no right to stop a
man’s earning his living. It ain’t none of any newspaper’s business.
Just a private affair between him and the farmer, and he’ll settle.”
“I don’t see how,” I put in somewhat warmly, “it isn’t the business of a
newspaper to tell its public of a dangerous man, arrested for fraud,
caught in his own net so badly that he is willing to settle, as you
claim. It is my obvious duty to my constituents to print such a case.
From the news point of view—” I was going on smoothly, but he stepped up
and shook his fist in my face.
“Constituents? Ain’t I a constituent? Don’t I pay your newspaper for
more advertising than any one else? Ain’t I your biggest constituent?
Say, young man, you’re too big for this town. Don’t try to bully me!” he
suddenly screamed. “Don’t you dare bully me! Don’t you dare try it. I
see what you want. You’re trying to blackmail me, you are; you’re trying
to work me for more advertising; you want money out of me. That game
don’t go; not with me it don’t. I’ll have you arrested.”
And he talked as though he believed it!
Then he said he’d never pay me another cent, might all manner of things
happen to his soul if he did. He’d go to the _Bulletin_, and double his
space. The man was his friend, and he had asked but a reasonable
request, and I had tried to blackmail him. He worked that blackmail in
every other sentence. Then he strode out, slamming the door.
The “little item” was not printed in the _Herald_ (nor in the
_Bulletin_, more used to such requests), and, as he had said, he was my
biggest advertiser. It was my first experience with the advertiser with
a request: for this reason I have given the incident fully. It recurred
every week. I grew to think little of it soon. “Think of how his
children will feel,” say the friends of some one temporarily lodged in
the police station. “Think of what the children of some one this man
will swindle next will say,” is what I might answer. But I don’t,—not if
an advertiser requests otherwise. As I have grown to phrase the matter,
a newspaper is a contrivance which meets its pay-roll by selling space
to advertisers: render it therefore agreeable to those who make its
existence possible. Less jesuitically it may be put—the ultimate editor
of a small newspaper is the advertiser, the biggest advertiser is the
politician. This is a maxim that experience has ground with its heel
into the fabric of my soul.
We all remember Emerson’s brilliantly un-New-England advice, “Hitch your
wagon to a star.” This saying is of no value to newspapers, for they
find stars poor motive power. Theoretically, it must be granted that
newspapers, of all business ventures, should properly be hitched to a
star. Yet I have found that, if any hitching is to be done, it must be
to the successful politician. Amending Mr. Emerson, I have found it the
best rule to “yoke your newspaper to the politician in power.”
This, then, is what a small newspaper does: sells its space to the
advertiser, its policy to the politician. It is smooth sailing save when
these two forces conflict, and then Scylla and Charybdis were joys to
the heart. Let us look into the advertiser part of the business a bit
more closely.
The advertiser seeks the large circulation. The biggest advertiser seeks
the cheapest people. Thus is a small newspaper (the shoe will pinch the
feet of the great as well) forced, in order to survive, to pander to the
Most Low. The man of culture does not buy $4.99 overcoats, the woman of
culture 27–cent slippers. The newspaper must see that it reaches those
who do. This is one of the saddest matters in the whole business. The
_Herald_ started with a circulation slightly over 2,000. I found that my
town was near enough to two big cities for the papers published there to
enter my field. I could not hope to rival their telegraphic features,
and I soon saw that, if the _Herald_ was to succeed, it must pay strict
attention to local news. My rival stole its telegraphic news bodily; I
paid for a service. The people seemed to care little for attempted
assassinations of the Shah, but they were intensely interested in
pinochle parties in the seventh ward. I gave them pinochle parties.
Still my circulation diminished. My rival regained all that I had taken
from him at the start. I wondered why, and compared the papers. I “set”
more matter than he. The great difference was that my headlines were
smaller and my editorial page larger than his. Besides, his tone was
much lower: he printed rumor, made news to deny it—did a thousand and
one things that kept his paper “breezy.”
I put in bigger headlines—outdid him, in fact. I almost abolished my
editorial page, making of it an attempt to amuse, not to instruct. I
printed every little personality, every rumor that my staff could get
hold of in their tours. The result came slowly, but surely. Success came
when I exaggerated every little petty scandal, every row in a church
choir, every hint of a disturbance. I compromised four libel suits, and
ran my circulation up to 3,200 in eleven months.
Then I formed some more conclusions. I evolved a newspaper law out of
the matter and the experience of some brothers in the craft in small
cities near by. Briefly, I stated it in this wise: The worse a paper is,
the more influence it has. To gain influence, be wholly bad.
This is no paradox, nor does it reflect particularly upon the public.
There is reason for it in plenty. Take the ably edited paper, which
glories in its editorial page, in the clean exposition of an honest
policy, in high ideas put in good English, and you will find a paper
which has a small clientele in a provincial town; or, if it has readers,
it will have small influence. Say that it strikes the reader at
breakfast, and the person who has leisure to breakfast is the person who
has time for editorials, and the expression of that paper’s opinion is
carefully read. Should these opinions square with the preconceived ideas
of the reader, the editorials are “great”; if not, they are “rotten.” In
other words, the man who reads carefully written editorials is the man
whose opinion is formed—the man of culture, and therefore of prejudice.
Doubtless he is as well acquainted with conditions as the writer;
perhaps better acquainted. When a man does have opinions in a small
city, he is quite likely to have strong ones. A flitting editorial is
not the thing to change them. On the other hand, the man who has little
time to read editorials, or perhaps little inclination, is just the man
who might be influenced by them if read. Hence well-written editorials
on a small daily are wasted thunder in great part, an uneconomic
expenditure of force.
When local politics are at fever-heat, a different aspect of affairs is
often seen: editorials are generally read, not so much as expressions of
opinion, but as party attack and defense. During periods of political
quiet the aim of most editorial pages is to amuse or divert. The
advertiser has noted the decadence of the editorial page, and as a
general thing makes a violent protest if the crying of his wares is made
to emanate from this poor, despised portion of the paper. An
advertisement on a local page is worth much more, and he pays more for
the privilege.
So I learned another lesson. I shifted, as my successful contemporaries
have done, my centre of editorial gravity from its former high position
to my first and local pages. I now editorialize by suggestion. News now
carries its own moral, the bias I wish it to show. This requires no less
skill than the writing of editorials, and, greatly as I deplore it, I
find the results pleasing. Does the _Herald_ wish to denounce a public
official? Into a dozen articles is the venom inserted. Slyly, subtly,
and ofttimes openly do news articles point the obvious moral. The “Acqua
Tofana” of journalism is ready to be used when occasion demands, and
this is very often. Innuendo is common, the stiletto is inserted quietly
and without warning, and tactics a man would shun may be used by a
newspaper with little or no adverse comment. I mastered the philosophy
of the indirect. I gained my ends by carefully coloring my news to the
ends and policies of the paper. Nor am I altogether to blame. My paper
was supposed to have influence. When I wrote careful and patient
editorials, it had none. I saw that the public mind must be enfiladed,
ambushed, and I adopted those primary American tactics of Indian
warfare: shot from behind tree trunks, spared not the slain, and from
the covert of a news item sent out screeching savages upon the
unsuspecting public. Editorial warfare as conducted fifty years ago is
obsolete; its methods are as antiquated to-day as is the artillery of
that age.
III
I have called the _Herald_ my own at different times in this article. I
conceived it, established it, built it up. It stands to-day as the
result of my work. True, my money was not the only capital it required,
but mine was the hand that reared it. I found, to my great chagrin, that
few people in the city considered me other than a hired servant of the
political organization that aided in establishing the _Herald_. It was
an “organ,” a something which stood to the world as the official
utterance of this political set. “Organs,” in newspaper parlance,
properly have but one function. Mine was evidently to explain or attack,
as the case might be. To the politicians who helped start the _Herald_
the paper was a political asset. It could on occasion be a club or a
lever, as the situation demanded. I had been led to expect no personal
intrusion. “Just keep straight with the party” was all that was asked.
But never was constancy so unfaltering as that expected of the _Herald_.
It must not print this because it was true; it must print that because
it was untrue.
I had been six months in the city, when I overheard a conversation in a
street car. “Oh, I’ll fix the _Herald_ all right. I know Johnny X,” said
one man. That was nice of Johnny X’s friend, I thought. The _Bulletin_
accused me of not daring to print certain matters. I was ashamed,
humiliated. Between the friends of Johnny X and the friends of others, I
saw myself in my true light. Johnny X, by the way, a noisy ward
politician, owned just one share in the _Herald_; but that gave his
friends the right to ask him to “fix” it, nevertheless.
I consulted with a wise man, a real leader, a man of experience and a
warm heart. He heard me and laughed, patting me on the shoulder to humor
me. “You want that printing, don’t you?” he asked.
I admitted that I did. I had counted on it.
“Then,” said my adviser, “I wouldn’t offend Johnny X, if I were you. He
controls the supervisor in his ward.”
I began to see a great light, and I have needed no other illumination
since. This matter of public printing had been promised me. I knew it
was necessary. I saw that, inasmuch as it was given out by the lowest
politicians in the town, I escaped easily if I paid as my price the
indulgence of the various Johnnies X who had “influence.” I was the paid
supernumerary of the party, yet had to bear its mistakes and follies,
its weak men and their weaker friends, upon my poor editorial back. I
realized it from that moment; I should have seen it before. But for all
that, my cheeks burned for days, and my teeth set whenever I faced the
thought. I don’t mind it in the least now.
So at the end of a year and a half I saw a few more things. I saw that
by being a good boy and adaptable to “fixing” I could earn thirty-five
dollars a week with less work than I could earn forty-five dollars in a
big city. I saw that the _Herald_ as a business proposition was a
failure; that is, it was not, even under the most advantageous
conditions, the money-maker that I at first thought it to be. I saw that
if the city grew, and if there were no more rivals, if there were a
hundred advantageous conditions, it might make several thousand dollars
a year, besides paying me a bigger salary. I was very much disheartened.
Then there came a turn.
I saw the business part of the proposition very clearly. I must play in
with my owners, the party; and in turn my owners would support me nearly
as well when they were out of power as they could when ruling. Revenue
came from the city, the county, the state, all at “legal” rates. I began
to see why these “legal” rates were high, some five times higher than
those of ordinary advertising for such a paper as the _Herald_. The
state, when paying its advertising bill, must pay the _Herald_ five
times the rate any clothing advertiser could get. The reason is not
difficult to see. All over the state and country there are papers just
like the _Herald_, controlled by little cliques of politicians, who, too
miserly to support the necessary losses, make the people pay for them.
Any attempt to lower the legal rate in any state legislature would call
up innumerable champions of the “press,” gentlemen all interested in
their newspapers at home. The people pay more than a cent for their
penny papers. It is the tax-payer who supports a thousand and one
unnecessary “organs.” The politicians are wise, after all.
So I got my perspective. I was paid to play the political game of
others. I had to play it supported by indirect bribes. As a straight
business proposition,—that is, without any state or city advertising,
tax sales, printing of the proceedings, and the like,—the _Herald_ could
not live out a year. But by refusing to say many things, and by saying
many more, I could get such share of these matters as would support the
paper. In my second year, near its close, I saw that I was really a
property, a chattel, a something bought and sold. I was being trafficked
with to my loss. My friends bought me with public printing, and sold me
for their own ends. I saw that they had the best of the bargain.
I could do better without the middlemen. I determined to make my own
bargain with the devil for my own soul. It was a brilliant thought, but
a bitter one. I determined to be a Sir John Hawkwood, and sell my
editorial mercenaries to the highest bidder. Only the weak are
gregarious, I thought with Nietzsche. If I could not put a name upon my
actions, at least I could put a price. I made a loan, grabbed up some
_Herald_ stock cheaply, and owned at last over fifty per cent of my own
paper. Now, I thought, I will at least make money.