“POISONED AT THE SOURCE”
I have been privileged to examine a mass of material, some three or four
million printed and typewritten words, the evidence collected for the
defense of Max Eastman and Art Young, when they were indicted for
criminal libel in November, 1913, at the instance of the Associated
Press. These three or four million printed and typewritten words enable
us to enter the offices of the Associated Press, and to watch its work
hour by hour. They enable us to study the process whereby the public
opinion of America is “poisoned at the source.”
Three hundred miles from our national capital, in the lonely mountains
of West Virginia, exists an empire of coal, governed in all respects as
Russia was governed in the days of the Tsardom. I take up two printed
volumes of testimony given before the investigating committee of the
United States Senate, a total of 2,114 closely printed pages; I turn
these pages at random, and pick out a few heads that will give you
glimpses of how things are managed by the coal barons of West Virginia:
“Check weighmen guaranteed by law, but not allowed to the miners.” “Men
paid in scrip which they could not cash.” “Men discharged and put out of
their houses, as fast as they talked unionism.” “Mail burned by store
manager.” “Law of West Virginia relieves coal owners from liability for
injuries in the mine, no matter how they occur.” “Independent
store-keeper refused his goods at the express office which was on
company grounds.” “Men not allowed to approach postoffice on company
property.” “Provost Marshal imprisoned nine men without trial.” “No mine
guard has ever been tried for participating in any battle.”
“Machine-guns and guards turned on peaceful crowd coming from meeting.”
In “King Coal” I have portrayed the conditions in Colorado. In West
Virginia conditions were in all respects the same, and for the same
reason. When the sixteen months’ strike in West Virginia had been
smashed, the same mine guards, with the same rifles and machine-guns,
were shipped to Colorado, and under the direction of the same
Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency they smashed the fourteen months’ strike
in Colorado. And both in West Virginia and Colorado the same Associated
Press was made use of to send to the country the same misrepresentations
and suppressions of truth.
In the “Independent” for May 15, 1913, after the West Virginia strike
had lasted more than a year, there appeared an article by Mrs. Fremont
Older, describing the farcical military trial of some union officials at
Paint Creek Junction. Mrs. Older, the only impartial person who was able
to get into this court-room, made the statement: “The Provost Marshal
was not only the ruling officer of Paint Creek Junction; he was the
Associated Press correspondent. He had the divine gift for creating
darkness.” In the next issue of the “Independent” appeared a letter from
the assistant general manager of the Associated Press, declaring: “The
Provost Marshal was not the Associated Press correspondent, and never
had been.”
Nevertheless, this rumor would not down, and in the “Masses” for July,
1913, appeared a cartoon: “Poisoned at the Source,” representing the
president of the Associated Press engaged in pouring the contents of a
bottle labeled “Lies” into a reservoir labeled “Public Opinion.”
Accompanying the cartoon was an editorial, one sentence of which read:
“The representative of the Associated Press was an officer in that
military tribunal that hounded the Paint Creek miners into the
penitentiary in violation of their constitutional liberties.” The answer
of the Associated Press to this was the indictment for criminal libel of
Max Eastman and Art Young. The “Masses,” presumably by advice of
counsel, did not discuss the case, and continued to maintain silence,
even after the case was dropped. The facts are here made public for the
first time—possibly because in preparing this book I have not taken the
trouble to consult counsel. Here are certain facts which the public
should have; and if I have to hand them to the public through the bars
of a jail, it will not be the first time that has happened in history.
Was the Provost Marshal of the West Virginia State Militia a
correspondent of the Associated Press? He was, or he was not—according
to whether you care about truth or technicality.
You are, doubtless, a loyal American. You believe in the constitution
and laws of your country, and you do not understand just what it meant
to be Provost Marshal of the West Virginia State Militia during the coal
strike of 1912–13. If you think that it meant to be a public official,
performing a public service in the interest of the public, you are
naïve. To have had anything to do with the West Virginia State Militia
during that strike meant to be a creature of the mine operators, in the
pay of the mine operators, owned body and soul by the mine operators. It
meant that you were setting aside, not merely the laws of the state of
West Virginia, but the Constitution of the United States. It meant that
you were beating and flogging and shooting strikers, kicking their wives
and children out of their homes to freeze in the mountain snows, turning
machine-guns upon their tent-colonies, throwing their leaders into jail
without trial, and torturing them there for months on end. It meant
this, whether you were the lowest Baldwin-Felts mine-guard taken out of
a city slum and put into the militia uniform; or whether you were Capt.
Lester, an official of militia, who testified under oath before the
Senate committee that it was not his business to know if miners had a
legal right to organize or not—he was sent there to prevent their
organizing, and he did what he was sent there to do.
And now, just what was the relationship of the Associated Press to this
prostituted State Militia? Was the Provost Marshal of Militia the
Associated Press correspondent in this field? He was, or he was
not—according as you care about truth or technicality.
The Associated Press correspondent at Charleston, who covered all the
strike, and who had been officially appointed and acknowledged, was a
man named Cal Young, and he had his office in the office, or connected
with the office, of the Adjt. General of Militia. This Cal Young had an
intimate friend by the name of John C. Bond, who was Provost Marshal of
Militia, and also was correspondent for several newspapers. Cal Young
did not trouble himself to travel about in the strike field, which was
widely scattered, occupying a number of mountain valleys. Bond, however,
was compelled by his militia duties to travel to the scene of all
troubles; therefore Bond and Young had an arrangement whereby Bond
telephoned news from wherever he was, and Young sent this news, not only
over the Associated Press wire, but to the papers which Bond
represented.
The above was stated from first-hand positive knowledge by Jesse
Sullivan at the State House to an attorney for whom I can vouch. Also it
was sworn to by W. Bruce Reid, reporter for the “Charleston Gazette” and
the “Kanawha Citizen.” Reid swore that he knew Young intimately; that
Young maintained his offices in the Adjt. General’s office without
charge; that Young from this office transmitted orders for the movements
of the State Militia, and for these services was paid out of the
Governor’s contingent fund; that he acted as official reporter for the
state administration; that anyone who called at the State House for news
was referred by the Governor and the Adjt. General to Young; that Young
received news of military doings and of strike incidents from J. C.
Bond, who was a printing clerk in the Secretary of State’s office, and
also captain and paymaster of militia; that Bond was made Provost
Marshal, with absolute authority over the strike territory, and tried a
number of citizens, ninety-eight in all, by military tribunal; that Bond
had a regular arrangement with Young whereby he furnished Young with
news reports; and that Young had an understanding with the military
department whereby all news was given out through him.
Reid further testified that he was instructed by the militia authorities
to distort news, and also to write editorials for his paper, supporting
the military policy; that when he refused to do this, the editors of his
paper were called up and practically instructed to write such
editorials, and that they did this; that furthermore Reid was threatened
if he failed to distort news as directed; that all these things were
well known to Young, correspondent of the Associated Press; that Young
was “extremely bitter against the miners’ cause”; that he continually so
expressed himself before Reid; that a correspondent of the “Baltimore
Sun,” who came to Charleston, was so impressed with Young’s prejudice
that he went into the field for himself, and wrote an entirely different
account of the events. It was known that Young, while Associated Press
representative, was seeking employment from the state administration,
and he had since obtained such employment.
So much for outside evidence. And now let us hear from Young himself.
The attorney sent by the “Masses” called upon Cal Young, who told him
that after the strike he had been discharged from the Associated Press
by W. H. French, manager of the Pittsburgh division, and that French had
stated to him that the reason was that Fremont Older and others had made
complaint concerning the news that the Associated Press had furnished
from West Virginia. Young admitted practically everything as stated by
Reid: his desk in the Adjt. General’s office, his relations with the
administration, and his arrangement with Bond, whereby Bond furnished
him regularly and continually with news from the field. I note three
sentences from the investigator’s report:
Young also stated that before martial law he got most of his
information from the Sheriff or Deputy Sheriff, or from telegraph
operators who were in the employ of the railroad company or the mine
owners. He stated that although he went up the Creek a few times, he
obtained most of the information through official reports. Young
stated that through the Senatorial investigation he had to cover other
territory and that during that time Bond covered the investigation for
the A. P.
Such are the facts. I have taken the trouble to give them at length, so
that you may judge for yourself. And in the light of these facts, what
do you think of the letter published in the “Independent” over the
signature of Frederick Roy Martin, assistant General Manager of the
Associated Press? Do you think that Mr. Martin was entirely ingenuous
when he stated: “The Provost Marshal was not the Associated Press
correspondent, and never had been”?
W. H. French, manager of the Pittsburgh division of the Associated
Press, was subpoenaed by the “Masses” editors, and gave his deposition
in advance of the expected trial. It was a trial all in itself, and the
stenographic record of it lies before me. For the light it throws on Mr.
French’s sincerity, let it be noted that he swore he could remember
nothing whatever of his conversation with Cal Young when he discharged
Young from the employ of the Associated Press. The discharge had taken
place less than a year previously, and Mr. French had taken a special
trip from Pittsburgh to Charleston, West Virginia, to attend to the
matter. But he could not remember why he had discharged Young, nor what
he had said to Young. He could not remember having mentioned Fremont
Older’s complaints. He vaguely thought that he had mentioned Bond, but
he couldn’t be sure in what connection he had mentioned Bond!
Mr. French explained in detail the methods by which the Associated Press
handled its news, and the principles upon which he and his subordinates
“edited” it. He produced a bulky mass of typewritten sheets, containing
all the dispatches dealing with the West Virginia strike sent out by the
Associated Press during sixteen months. Mr. French swore that this
record was complete; and you will readily understand that in studying
the reports it is of the utmost importance whether Mr. French was
telling the truth. If the Associated Press sends out hundreds of
dispatches about a strike, and if, before such dispatches are offered in
evidence, they are carefully gone over and those which are flagrantly
untrue and damaging to the reputation of the Associated Press are
extracted and destroyed—then obviously the Associated Press has poisoned
the evidence of the trial at the source.
Can I say that the officials of the Associated Press did thus poison the
evidence by which they endeavored to send Max Eastman and Art Young to
the penitentiary? No, I cannot say that. All I can say is, that Mr.
French submitted this record under oath, as the original record, and a
correct and complete record, and testified under oath that there was no
possibility of its being incorrect or incomplete. Also I can say that an
investigation made in the bound files of two Associated Press newspapers
revealed the fact that these papers had published dispatches, marked as
sent by the Associated Press, which did not appear in the correct and
complete record offered under oath by the Associated Press. Such a
dispatch may be found in the “Los Angeles Times,” September 9, 1912,
marked “(by A. P. Night Wire to the Times).” Another such dispatch may
be found in the “Nashville American,” September 22, 1912, marked “(By
Associated Press).”
Let us take the five hundred and thirty-seven exhibits that the
Associated Press did submit. By means of them we are enabled to enter
the Associated Press’ Pittsburgh office and watch step by step the
process of poisoning the news at the source. Mr. French, it appears, was
not satisfied with the bitterly prejudiced reports which his
correspondent, Young, and Young’s partner, Bond, sent in to him. He
found it necessary to go over their dispatches, and to put in still more
poison. The dispatches, as submitted in evidence, contained numerous
pencil-marks, excisions and revisions; and all these were initialed, so
that it was possible to tell whether Mr. French or one of his assistants
had done the work.
Mr. French, under cross examination, explained exactly upon what
principles this “editing” had been done. Thus there had been cut out a
sentence: “That mine-guards have resorted to unlawful practice is
generally conceded.” Mr. French explained that this sentence was
editorial opinion; the dispatch did not say _who_ conceded it. Mr.
French declared that he used this same system of editing all through the
dispatches. But in the same dispatch his attention was called to the
sentence: “Contrary to expectations, the miners did not go to the
meeting armed with rifles.” This clearly prejudiced sentence stayed in
the dispatch—in spite of the fact that the dispatch did not reveal
_whose_ expectations were referred to! And Mr. French testified that
such cutting out of a sentence favorable to the miners and leaving in of
a sentence injurious to the miners did not in his judgment render the
dispatch unfair. Mr. French repeated the words twice: “I do not say
unfair. I do not say unfair.” So we are provided with a precise measure
of the sense of fairness of an Associated Press manager in charge of
strike-news!
In one case the story of an ambush by miners came to the Pittsburgh
office, with the qualification: “According to the story which reached
here this afternoon.” These words were cut out—the effect of the
alteration being to make a rumor into a statement of fact. Mr. French
could give no justification for this proceeding. From another dispatch
the sentence had been cut: “The workers were ready to stick to the
last.” That seemed to Mr. French a superfluous sentence! Again he had
altered a dispatch which interviewed the President of the United Mine
Workers of America. “He declared that the miners of West Virginia were
groaning under oppressive methods.” Mr. French’s office had altered it
to read that the miners _had been_ groaning; and he could see no
difference in this change of tense!
I have taken the trouble myself to study the dispatches; and how I wish
that I might have Mr. French upon the witness-stand! I would like to go
through the five hundred and thirty-seven dispatches and point out how
utterly false is his claim that hearsays and opinions were not admitted.
There are literally hundreds of hearsays and opinions! For example, the
miners are threatening trouble, and “it is thought that on account of
this situation the martial law zone may have to be extended.” Again: “In
some quarters the opinion was expressed that the miners had retired into
the mountains.” Again: “All the prisoners, it was reported, have been
removed from box-cars and were being made as comfortable as possible.”
Again: “This afternoon there was considerable shooting at Holly Grove.
It is said that men employed in the mines were accosted by strikers.”
Again: “Armed miners have taken possession of the strike territory,
according to reports.” Such hearsays and opinions as this you find in
every other dispatch. Certain testimony is introduced before a
commission of the Governor of the State, and the Pittsburgh office of
the Associated Press is so in love with hearsays and opinions that it
takes some of the evidence introduced and deliberately turns it into
hearsay and opinion! I quote one paragraph, first as it was sent in by
the correspondent in the field, and second as it was altered in the
Pittsburgh office:
The evidence introduced all tends to show that the prices at the
company stores have been much higher than at independent stores, and
that there had been no trouble until the mine-guards were brought into
the district.
_According to the miners_ the prices at the company stores have been
much higher than at independent stores. _They say_ there would have
been no trouble if the mine-guards had not been brought into the
district.
On November 20, 1912, the Charleston correspondent sent a long dispatch
about the fighting, and whole paragraphs of this dispatch were cut out
in the Pittsburgh office. I note that in these paragraphs were many
hearsays and opinions; but I note that Mr. French’s assistants were not
content to cut out the hearsays and opinions—they also cut out the news.
Here, for example, is one paragraph that never saw the light:
During the first period of military control the sympathy, it is
claimed of a majority of the West Virginians, was with the miners.
Since that time many of the union miners have left this section,
taking their families into other coal fields. Then, it is alleged, the
contention was the removal of the mine-guard system maintained by the
coal operators, which had become obnoxious to the miners.
Or these two sentences, cut from the same dispatch:
Many strike-breakers imported into the trouble zone have deserted.
Today hundreds of these men reached this city from the mining district
and walked the streets.
It is especially interesting to note that the date of the dispatch from
which the above two paragraphs were cut corresponds exactly with a date
when Mr. French, according to his own testimony, sent a special
correspondent to Charleston to report the news more fully. He sent a
special man, and when this special man sent news favorable to the
miners, Mr. French or his assistants sliced out whole chunks from his
dispatches—practically everything giving the miners’ side!
On September 25, 1912, the Associated Press correspondent in Charleston
was moved by some unaccountable impulse to tell the world the precise
mechanism of the blacklist which the companies maintained—while
insisting, of course, that they had never heard of a blacklist. Says the
dispatch:
This it was shown was accomplished through a personal description of a
miner on the back of house leases. If the miner was dismissed as
undesirable other operators were given a copy of the description.
But was this dangerous information allowed to go out to the world? It
was not!
Or again, take the dispatch of February 10, 1913, which tells how,
whenever the militiamen came after the strikers, the strikers would
dodge trouble; they would “defeat the purpose of the authorities by
quietly retiring into the mountains.” Mr. French’s office makes such a
slight change; it merely cuts out one word—the word “quietly”—thus
turning a joke into a military operation! Or take the night dispatch of
April 22, 1913, which tells how the Governor of West Virginia made a
speech to the miners’ delegates. Among other things the Governor said:
“I assure you that the laboring world has no better friend in public
office than myself.” The Pittsburgh office of the Associated Press cut
out this incendiary sentence from the Governor’s speech!
A still more illuminating method of approaching the problem is to
compare the Associated Press dispatches as they actually reached the
public with the facts as developed by sworn testimony of hundreds of
witnesses before the Senate committee. I have made many such
comparisons; I will give one.
Among the men who testified before the Senate committee was Lee Calvin,
a mine-guard of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency. Calvin later made an
affidavit, in the course of which he told of his experiences on board
the “Bull Moose Special,” an armored train which was taken up and down
the railroads of these valleys, to shoot up the homes and tent-colonies
of the strikers with a machine-gun. This “Bull Moose Special” was at the
disposal, not merely of the state militia and of the mine-guards, but of
the mine-operators as well. Calvin tells how he was invited by Quinn
Morton, the largest coal-operator in the Kanawha Valley, to join a
shooting party on the night of February 7, 1913. There were two or three
dozen men with several boxes of guns; also the machine-gun. I quote from
an affidavit by Calvin:
When we got near Holly Grove the brakeman commenced turning down the
lights. When the engineer came in front of Holly Grove he gave two
short blasts from the whistle. I was leaning out of the window and
they commenced firing out of the baggage car. Flashes, lights, reports
and cracks from the machine-gun took me all at once, and the train was
a long stream of fire which commenced coming out of the Gatling gun.
In about twenty or thirty seconds there came a flash here and there
from the tents. About four came from the tents altogether, and they
were about 100 feet apart, it would seem to me. No shots had been
fired from the tents prior to the time the shots were fired from the
train.
Do not imagine that these incidents rest upon the credibility of Lee
Calvin alone. They were sworn to by numerous persons of all classes. Mr.
Quinn Morton himself admitted before the Senate committee that he had
called up the superintendent of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad and
ordered the “Bull Moose Special” for that night; also that he had gone
to a hardware store and purchased thirty Springfield rifles and taken
them in a taxi-cab to the train. He objected to the train being referred
to as “his” train—explaining that by the objection he meant that he did
not own the train!
Also there was introduced the evidence of many persons who happened to
be at the muzzle-end of Mr. Morton’s thirty Springfield rifles: for
example, Mrs. Estep, wife of a miner in Holly Grove:
Senator Kenyon: “Had there been any disorder in the settlement that
night? Had you heard any shooting before that time?”
Mrs. Estep: “No, sir.”
Senator Kenyon: “Could you hear this train coming?”
Mrs. Estep: “We heard it after it commenced shooting. We had not heard
it before. We had our doors closed.”
Senator Kenyon: “Could you see the train?”
Mrs. Estep: “No, sir; I never went out the front way at all.”
Senator Kenyon: “When did you know your husband was shot?”
Mrs. Estep: “I didn’t know he was killed until after the train quit
shooting, and I heard some of them speak to him and call his name, and
I never heard him answer.”
And now, put yourself in the place of the Associated Press
correspondent, with your office in the Adjt. General’s office in the
State House. This train, you understand, starts from Charleston, and
comes back to Charleston, and militia officers are on it, and deputy
sheriffs are on it. You know Quinn Morton well; you know everybody
concerned well; you are in the midst of the gossip and excitement, you
see the warriors come back from the fray, boasting of their
achievements, laughing and “kidding” one another. You know that they
have done this thing several times before, and intend to go on doing it.
It is your duty to furnish the American people with news concerning
their doings.
The matter is a ticklish one, because Quinn Morton is the largest coal
operator in the Kanawha Valley. Of course you cannot mention his name in
such a connection; you cannot imply that any mine-operator ever had
anything to do with violence, nor must you admit that a striker was
killed during a machine-gun attack upon a village at night. You cover
the death of Mrs. Estep’s husband in one clever sentence as follows:
According to information received here late today, Robert Estep, a
miner, was killed last night during the rioting at Mucklow.
The above sentence is from an Associated Press dispatch. And here are
the three dispatches in which the news of the “Bull Moose Special” was
sent out to the world. I give them exactly as they stand, with all the
telegraph marks and technicalities. I might mention that the word
“correct,” which has been inserted, is an “A. P.” mark; I do not know
its relation to the dispatch. Also I might add that the words “passenger
train” are Associated Press euphemism for “Bull Moose Special.” You may
not recognize the events, but this is really the same “Bull Moose”
expedition that Lee Calvin and Quinn Morton and Mrs. Estep have just
told us about:
BULLETIN
Charleston, W. Va., Feb. 7.
Conditions are critical tonight in Paint and Cabin Creeks, Kanawha
County, where a coal strike has been on over a year. A Chesapeake and
Ohio passenger train was shot up late tonight; the town of Mucklow, W.
Va., was riddled with bullets and a physician, with a man dying
driving through the district, was fired upon. When the physician with
his patient arrived at the hospital, the patient was dead.
Will Be Add,
H.
A T J—12:55 A. M.
.tb
BULLETIN
Charleston, W. Va., Feb. 7.
(Add bulletin.)
The Chesapeake and Ohio passenger train ran for half a mile under
fire, but no one was injured. At Mucklow a majority of houses bear
marks from rifles, but in this place no one was injured.
Late tonight a conference was held with Governor Glasscock, during
which Sheriff Bonner Hill asked the governor that troops be sent into
the strike territory. Sheriff Hill notified the governor that the
Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad would have a special train ready to move
the troops at once.
Will Be Add,
H.
A 2 J—1:11 A. M.
.tb
BULLETIN
Charleston, W. Va., Feb. 7.
(Add bulletin.)
At midnight striking miners were gathering from Paint and Cabin Creeks
in the vicinity of Mucklow. There is anxiety here as to the next move
of the strikers.
The engineer and two passengers were injured when the passenger train
on the Chesapeak and Ohio was fired upon. (CORRECT.)
Deputy sheriffs waiting for such an attack as occurred tonight were
prepared. The officers directed bullets into Mucklow from rapid fire
guns and rifles. The miners’ camp was subjected to a heavy fire and
whether the shots were effective is not known.
Mucklow is surrounded by mountains and the fighting between strikers
and the authorities is difficult.
H.
A 2 J—1:22 A. M.
These are your night dispatches. Next day more details come in, and you
send a message to the effect that the sheriff and his deputies cannot
get into the miners’ camp to see if any of the campers have been killed
or injured. Then, realizing that serious trouble is coming, you wonder
whether you may not have distorted the news a little more than is
permitted, even to an Associated Press correspondent. You fear that you
have put in a fatal dose of poison, and decide to protect yourself by
sending a small quantity of antidote—such a wee, small quantity of
antidote! You write:
Shooting from the train, attacked on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad
during the night, _was in the direction of the camp_, and it was
feared that if any of the women and children had been hurt the sheriff
and his men would be unable to restrain the angry men as they
outnumber the posse ten to one, and are said to be well armed.
Such is the news, and all the news which the Associated Press sent to
the public about that exploit of the “Bull Moose Special” on the night
of February 7, 1913. And now do you think, or do you not think, that the
editors of the “Masses” were justified in their cartoon alleging that
this news was “Poisoned at the Source”? I think so; also I think that
Senator John W. Kern of Indiana was justified in his statements made in
the United States Senate three months later, regarding the suppression
of other news from this coal strike:
But to me the most startling fact bearing on the subject under
discussion was this: Here was a proceeding not only unusual but almost
unheard of being carried on almost in sight of the capital of West
Virginia and within 300 miles of the National capital. One of the
best-known women in America—a woman past her eightieth year—a woman
known and loved by millions of the working people of America for the
promotion of whose welfare and for the amelioration of whose condition
she had dedicated her life—a woman so honored and beloved by these
millions that she was known to all of them in every humble home as
Mother Jones, was being tried in this unusual way before this mock
tribunal.
The fact of the trial was sensational. The subject matter of the trial
was of the deepest interest The incidents of such a trial would be of
necessity, not only sensational, but would interest the country.
And yet the great news-gathering agencies of the country, active,
alert, with a large, intelligent force searching everywhere for items
of news, were not able to furnish a line of information to their
newspaper patrons concerning this astonishing proceeding.
This fact speaks volumes as to the conditions in that terror-stricken
country. A zone had been established for these infamous proceedings
for the purpose of suppressing information concerning them.
I was informed by a representative of the greatest of all these
news-gathering agencies that the proceedings were not reported because
the conditions there were such that it was not safe for newspaper men
to enter the field to secure the facts for publication.
This same agency has had a representative in the City of Mexico
throughout the period of the recent revolutions. He was not afraid to
remain there and report faithfully the news while the streets were
being plowed and mowed by the deadly missiles from the cannons of
contending armies. But in West Virginia the situation was such that
the American reading public was kept in profound ignorance of the
startling happenings there because of a reign of terror which could
not be braved by the dauntless representatives of the American Press
associations.
This single fact alone will justify fully the most searching
investigation.
I have discussed in Chapter XLII the mystery of why the Associated Press
dropped the case against the “Masses.” I always prefer to give both
sides of a question, and it was my hope that I might be able to give the
Associated Press explanation of this mystery. My hope was roused by Mr.
Stone himself, who entered into correspondence with me, and made the
flat-footed statement: “I am glad to give anyone information respecting
this organization.” I, being a trusting person, took Mr. Stone at his
word, and wrote him a courteous letter, putting to him four questions,
as follows:
1. Was any investigation made of my wife’s complaint to you of the
false report sent out by the Associated Press that she was arrested on
April 29, 1914, in New York City? And why was no correction of this
false report ever made, in spite of my wife’s written request? Every
New York newspaper and every other press association in America sent
out a correct report of my arrest, only the Associated Press reported
that my wife was arrested.
2. What was the result of the investigation which you promised to make
concerning my article published in the “Appeal to Reason” in the
latter part of May, 1914, telling of the refusal of the Associated
Press to send out a report of a deliberate lie told by Gov. Ammons of
Colorado to President Wilson? Mr. John P. Gavit of the “New York
Evening Post” showed me your letter, promising to investigate this
matter.
3. What was the reason the Associated Press decided to drop the libel
suit against the “Masses”?
4. What action, if any, did the Associated Press take concerning the
charges published in “Pearson’s Magazine” by Charles Edward Russell,
dealing with its gross and systematic misrepresentation of the Calumet
strikers?
I put these four questions politely, and in entire good faith, and
instantly my correspondence with Mr. Stone comes to an end! I wait day
by day; I wait with sorrow and yearning, but no answer comes from Mr.
Stone. I delay sending my book to the printer for more than two months,
hoping to get a reply from Mr. Stone; but I get no reply!
I now publicly address to Mr. Stone one final communication. I implore
him, for the sake of the honor of the great institution which he
represents, for the sake of the good name of all American Journalism,
not to swallow in silence the charges published in a book called “The
Brass Check.” I implore him to have the author of that volume arrested
for criminal libel—and when the case is ready for trial, not to drop it!
My wife reads this chapter and asks me to omit the last paragraph. She
says I am “bow-wowing” at Mr. Stone.
I think it over and decide to accept the metaphor. I picture a big dog
walking down the street, a stately and dignified dog, and a very little
dog comes up behind him and says “bow-wow,” and the big dog puts his
tail between his legs and runs. However we may think about this
incident, one thing certainly has been accomplished—the big dog has been
robbed of his pose. Never again will we regard him as a stately and
dignified dog!