JABBERGRAB IN JOURNALISM
In all these new academic department-stores one of the leading
departments is that of journalism. Here they teach you how to write for
and edit newspapers; and needless to say, what the students want is to
be prepared to fill positions on the capitalist press, and their
judgment of a school of journalism is conditioned upon the salaries
secured by its graduates. The first school of this kind was started at
Columbia, with an endowment left by Joseph Pulitzer, the father of
“yellow” journalism. Being curious to know what kind of ethics Mr.
Pulitzer’s school is teaching, I pick up a publication of the Alumni
Association, “Clean Copy.” The title page contains a list of officers,
and I note the chairman’s name, and his address—prepare yourself for a
laugh!—care Ivy Lee, 61 Broadway, New York City! So we learn that the
Columbia School of Journalism is preparing students to work in the
offices of “Poison Ivy!” Its standards are such that it is willing for
an employe of “Poison Ivy” to be chairman of its Alumni, and to
advertise that fact in its paper!
When I first came in touch with Mr. Lee’s lie-factory, he was press
agent for John D. Rockefeller, Jr., at a thousand dollars a month; then
he became prize poisoner for the Pennsylvania Railroad, and now he has
in New York and Washington a great publicity bureau, serving all the
railroads of the United States in their war upon the American people.
What “Poison Ivy” gets for this work I have no idea, but it must be a
generous sum; a friend of mine was looking for an apartment in New York,
and entered one of those new palatial houses just off Fifth Avenue, and
was informed by those in charge that the cheapest apartment in the place
rented for twenty-five thousand dollars a year—and one of the tenants is
Ivy L. Lee! It is interesting to note that it took a combination of our
three most aristocratic universities, Princeton, Harvard and Columbia,
to turn out this super-professor of prevarication!
Also the University of Wisconsin got in early on the journalism
business. One of its professors got out a textbook, which was used until
quite recently at Wisconsin, and is still used at many other places;
there are thousands of practicing journalists in America today who got
their ethical ideals from Professor Hyde’s text-book, which advises
students about dramatic criticism: “Very few critics are so fortunate as
to be able to say exactly what they think about a play; they must say
what the editor wants them to say.”... The dramatic critic “must praise
more cleverly, and give his copy the appearance of honest criticism.”
Needless to say, they have a school of journalism at the University of
Jabbergrab. The director of this department is James Melvin Lee, who got
his training for the teaching of journalistic ideals on the staff of
“Leslie’s,” the barber-shop weekly, and later for four years as editor
of “Judge,” the bar-room comic. Concerning Professor Lee’s journalistic
standards I have intimate knowledge, derived from a protracted
controversy over “The Brass Check”; so here I can draw you a complete
picture of Jabbergrab in action.
A controversy with Professor Lee is a good deal like fighting one of
those enchanters you read about in the fairy tales—your sword goes
straight through him, and leaves him the same as he was before. He made
his first attack on “The Brass Check” at the Brownsville Labor Forum,
and his cry was that he wanted definite facts—there were none in my
book! Again and again I supplied him with facts, and discovered the
curious phenomenon—he paid not the slightest attention to any which I
supplied; he would come again, demanding the same ones! The New York
“Globe” saw in our controversy a good journalistic stunt, and they
invited Professor Lee and myself to row it out, and gave each of us a
total of six columns. And here in the “Globe,” Professor Lee repeated
one after another all the various demands and challenges which he had
issued at the Brownsville Labor Forum—overlooking almost all the data I
had furnished him in the meantime!
For my first article in the “Globe,” I took the trouble to go over “The
Brass Check” and count the number of cases which give complete
documentation—names, places, and dates—and these came to a total of two
hundred and thirteen. In addition, there are perhaps a dozen or two
anecdotes which I narrate upon the authority of other people, being in
every case careful to name my authority. Finally, there are half a dozen
trivial incidents—such as the fact that an old college professor of mine
fell down an elevator shaft in a department-store—which I did not
document, for the reason that these incidents occurred to me in the
final revision of the book, and I could not have the files of the New
York newspapers consulted in time. Professor Lee’s method of controversy
was to pick out these few trifling incidents, and recite them to the
Brownsville audience, and to the readers of the New York “Globe,” with
elaborate challenges to me to produce this information. Thus, to a
single anecdote of Gaylord Wilshire being misrepresented by the
Associated Press, Professor Lee devoted three paragraphs in the “Globe,”
demanding at great length the names of the newspapers and the dates; I
supplied him with the names and dates of two newspapers—but to no result
that I could discover.
Both in his Brownsville address and in the “Globe” controversy he took
up my story of the Associated Press crimes in Colorado; but he was
careful to confine himself to one detail, my telegram to President
Wilson—because he was able to argue that this telegram was libelous and
that it was “self-advertising.” He made no mention of any other aspect
of the whole series of suppressions which I proved against the
Associated Press during that Colorado coal strike. Still more
significant is the fact that nowhere in these controversies could I get
him to mention the conduct of the Associated Press in the West Virginia
coal strike. The reason was obvious enough; the Associated Press had
here been so indiscreet as to come into court and submit its own
dispatches in evidence, and its poisoning of the news was proved by its
sworn official admissions. This was not the sort of “facts” that
Professor Lee was looking for, and so he never let anyone hear about
them!
Equally significant was his handling of the false report sent out by the
Associated Press, to the effect that my wife had been arrested during
our demonstration in front of the Standard Oil Building, New York,
during the Colorado coal strike. I stated in “The Brass Check” that my
wife notified the Associated Press of the falsity of this report, and
demanded a retraction. In his first letter to me Professor Lee made the
flat statement: “_The Associated Press does not have proof; it did not
receive it._” In my reply, I pointed out to Professor Lee the naïveté of
his own statement; how without one particle of evidence, he accepted the
word of the Associated Press, and turned it into a flat statement of his
own. My wife filed libel suits against thirty Associated Press
newspapers which had published the false report, and the Associated
Press was liable for every dollar that these newspapers might have to
pay. Was it humanly believable that not one of these newspapers would
notify the Associated Press of the filing of these suits? On the
contrary, was it not certain that every one of these papers, under the
advice of their attorneys, would notify the Associated Press of the
filing of the suit, and of the paper’s expectation that the Associated
Press would defend it? I sent to my New York office a copy of a
newspaper, containing an account of the filing of the suit, and
Professor Lee inspected this evidence in the presence of my New York
manager; but did this make any difference to him? It made not a
particle! When he took up the controversy in the New York “Globe,” he
brought up the same argument again: “The point at issue is whether such
attention was called to the Associated Press!”
Still funnier was what happened in the case of Professor Lee’s demand
that some one should name a newspaper which had suppressed the name of a
department-store in connection with a discreditable news item. Professor
Lee, reading “The Brass Check,” observed that most of my anecdotes of
this kind dealt with newspapers in Philadelphia, Boston, Milwaukee and
other cities. Therefore, he phrased his challenge at the Brownsville
Labor Forum so that it referred only to _New York_ newspapers; he called
for names, places and dates—and of course nobody at the Brownsville
Labor Forum could supply such data. In the New York “Globe” he repeated
this challenge, very proudly and very confidently. But, alas, right in
the middle of the controversy, his friends on the kept press threw him
down! On June 27 he published in the “Globe” his article headed, “Lee
Calls on Sinclair for Names, Dates, Places”; and nine days later the New
York “Evening Sun,” in its baseball edition, Wednesday, July 6, 1920,
page two, column eight, published a story about a man who had sued a
department-store and collected money from it—and nowhere in the article
was the department-store named!
Also I ought to mention the behavior of this professor of Jabbergrab in
connection with the New York “Times.” This controversy, with all the
documents, is given in a pamphlet, “The Crimes of the ‘Times,’” which
you may have for the asking. I will here mention only one or two
details. The “Times” reported Professor Lee’s Brownsville address to the
extent of two columns, quoting mainly his defense of the “Times.” I
replied in a letter, and the “Times” did to this the most dishonest
thing a newspaper can do—it refused to publish the letter, but discussed
it in an editorial, and falsified its contents! I sent the “Times” a
telegram, calling attention to the falsifications, but they refused any
sort of redress. These falsifications stand in the files of the paper;
they are listed in its index, found in every large library in the
country. Students of “The Brass Check” will come upon those falsehoods;
but they will know nothing about my answer, for my humble little
pamphlet is not catalogued in libraries. I trust therefore that the
reader will pardon me if I take two paragraphs of this book to state the
facts; especially since every step of the controversy was a test, not
merely of the “Times,” but of the Director of Journalism of New York
University.
The incident in dispute is told on page 77 of “The Brass Check,” dealing
with the publication of my novel, “The Metropolis.” The New York “Times”
had prepared a front-page news story about this novel, and the story was
killed at the last minute by Mr. Ochs, publisher of the “Times.”
Professor Lee, in his Brownsville speech, declared that this narrative
of mine was absurd upon its face. In my letter to the “Times,” I put it
up to the “Times” to say whether my narrative was true or false. The
“Times,” refusing to publish the letter, declared editorially that no
such incident had occurred. Said the “Times”: “Mr. Sinclair refers to
this tale in his letter to the ‘Times,’ but with a shifting of ground.
For his own positive statement in ‘The Brass Check’ he now substitutes
the alleged statement of a ‘publicity agent’ of a publishing house,”
etc.
Now the facts were as follows: “The Metropolis” had been published in
serial form in the “American Magazine”; and in “The Brass Check” I had
stated that it was this magazine which had arranged for the story in the
“Times.” Subsequently I recalled that it was Moffat, Yard & Company, the
publishers of the _book_, who had made the arrangements, and this
correction I noted in my letter to the “Times.” Manifestly, this made no
difference, so far as concerned the “Times”; but you see what use they
made of this “shifting of ground”! Their assertion, that I “relied upon
the alleged statement of a publicity agent of a publishing house” was a
flat falsehood; for in my letter to the “Times” I told them that “I saw
the proofs of the proposed story with my own eyes.” A day or two later I
was able to telegraph them statements from the two gentlemen who had
composed the firm of Moffat, Yard & Company, Mr. W. D. Moffat and Mr.
Robert Sterling Yard, both declaring that they plainly remembered the
preparing of the story by the “Times,” and their disappointment when
they found it did not appear as promised. The “Times” received this
testimony, but refused publication to it, and paid no attention to my
telegrams of protest!
And now, where was Professor Lee during this controversy? Professor Lee
had furnished the “Times” with the ammunition to attack me; he had
defended their journalistic practices, and they had published his
defense. Here he saw them committing a piece of the baldest journalistic
rascality—and what did he do about it? I telegraphed him again and
again, asking him to take steps to induce the newspaper to correct its
published falsehoods. Later on, I challenged him again and again to
withdraw his published endorsement of the newspaper’s ethical code. His
reply was to go before the University Settlement, and repeat his attack
upon “The Brass Check” and his defense of the “Times”—and the “Times”
once more featured his address! To the manager of my New York office
Professor Lee made the smiling statement that he was publishing a
magazine for business men, and he did not care how much I attacked him
in public—it would only help him with his business clients!
You have heard me protesting against the practice of covering
commercialists and servants of privilege with the mantle of academic
dignity; and here you see what it means, and why it is done. The New
York “Times” did not dare to answer “The Brass Check” itself; for a year
it had ignored the book—save to post in its editorial rooms a statement
that anyone found with a copy in the office would be summarily
discharged! But then came forward a personage with the high-sounding
title of “Director of the Department of Journalism of New York
University”; and the “Times” made itself into a megaphone, to carry this
hitherto negligible voice to the farthest ends of the earth!