NEWSPAPER ETHICS
The editor of one of the leading magazines recently wrote to me, asking
that I write for him a series of articles on the rise and decline of
journalism during the last fifty years. The proposition struck me as
being so absurd that I promptly declined, explaining to the editor that
I was unaware of any deterioration in our daily newspapers of to-day as
compared with any period with which my memory is associated. Nor has
there been.
It is my firm belief that at no time in the history of American
journalism have newspapers been more enterprising, more reliable, or
more influential. They are now, as they always have been and I hope
always will be, the greatest of all educators of mankind, honest,
truthful, and dependable. A dozen years have gone by since the great
editor of the New York _World_ passed to his reward, but his paper
is to-day as ably edited and as alert in gathering and presenting
news as during his lifetime. I can observe no signs of degeneracy
in either the news or editorial columns. This is true of its most
aggressive rival, the New York _Times_, a greater newspaper to-day
than at any time since it was founded. Other great newspapers are the
Philadelphia _Ledger_, the Chicago _Tribune_, and scores and
hundreds of lesser important ones in various cities throughout the
country.
A devoted friend, evidently sharing the mistaken opinion of the
magazine editor who asked me to write about the decline of American
journalism, has sent me a book that was written by Upton Sinclair. It
is entitled _The Brass Check_, an abusive and wholly unmerited
tirade against American newspapers. If half that he writes against them
were true, most of the publishers and editors deserve to be put in jail
and kept there.
My friend who sent me the book writes: “You certainly ought to know the
truth about a good deal of what he relates, and now that you are in a
disinterested position in relation to it you will probably be ready to
admit many of the iniquities of the present system of journalism.”
I read the book, a mess of maliciousness, and I am surprised that
anyone so intelligent as my friend could be so prejudiced by what seems
to me unconvincing mendacity.
As to my admitting “many of the iniquities of the present system of
journalism,” I can do nothing of the kind, for none exist or ever have
existed, as far as I ever experienced. In all of my forty years of
active newspaper work, most of it in the capacity of editor, I have
personally known of but two dishonorable newspaper publishers. One of
these got his just deserts when he was sentenced to serve a long term
of imprisonment in Joliet Penitentiary.
During the entire period of twenty-seven years that I was with the
Pulitzers, I was never once asked by anyone in authority to publish an
improper news item, nor was I ever asked to withhold or suppress or
color a news article. Joseph Pulitzer was the last man who would have
suggested such a thing, and had I done so at the suggestion of another
I would have ceased to be connected with his newspaper the instant it
was called to his attention.
Mr. Pulitzer was as zealous in preserving the integrity of his
newspaper as he would have been in protecting the good name of any
member of his family. He was a stickler for accuracy. He appreciated
the difficulties his news writers encountered in getting absolutely
accurate details of anything they could not personally witness, but he
had no patience with careless reporting or exaggeration. I have known
him to handsomely reward the enterprise of one of his reporters, and
a week later order his suspension because of a gross exaggeration in
estimating the number of marchers in a St. Patrick’s Day parade.
He forgave mistakes, but punished carelessness. He knew, as all
experienced newspaper men know, that inaccuracies are bound to
appear in the news accounts that are written by the ablest and most
conscientious men of the staff, as often as in the work of the novice.
The rapidity with which details of an important news happening are
gathered and put into type in time to get into the next edition is
partly responsible for some of the inaccuracies, but the greatest
difficulty lies in getting accurate statements from those to whom a
newspaper reporter must go for facts.
Let an accident, a murder, a robbery, or any of the many happenings
of a great city take place, and the first reporters to arrive on the
scene will frequently encounter a dozen or more eyewitnesses, all of
them eager to tell what they heard and saw and no two of them ever tell
the story alike. All may mean to be truthful and perhaps are sincere
in describing what they believe took place, but they saw it through
different lenses and the reporters are confronted with the difficulty
of weeding out the facts from the mass of conflicting and confusing
statements. That is why the reports in different newspapers so seldom
agree. I have made repeated tests and have never yet found the
statements of two persons to be alike in many of the important details.
This is also true in the testimony that one hears at every important
trial. No two witnesses testify alike, although they may intend to
be absolutely truthful and impartial. Reporters, I think, seldom
deliberately lie or color the facts for the purpose of adding interest
to their stories; “faking” is what lying is called in newspaper
offices. The career of a “faker” is short lived. His offense is sure
to be soon detected and it is never condoned. I don’t think there is a
city editor who wouldn’t discharge a news “faker” without compunction.
In my long career as a city editor I fired more men for inaccurate
reporting than for all other causes.
I have mentioned how zealous Mr. Pulitzer was in preserving the
integrity of his newspaper and there comes to my mind an incident that
attracted the attention of every member of the staff at the time it
happened. A new managing editor had come to the paper from the West,
at a time when the _World_ was exposing one of the most corrupt
political bosses that ever flaunted himself in Tammany Hall, and one
night someone connected with the _World_ was astounded at seeing
the new editor occupying a box at one of the theaters with the Tammany
boss. Others in the audience were equally astounded. Mr. Pulitzer
heard of it and sent for his indiscreet editor and what he said to him
rang in his ears as long as he lived. Soon after that the editor was
shunted into a less conspicuous position and he never regained the
confidence of his employer.
Another editor, who had a personal grievance against William R. Hearst,
smuggled into the editorial columns a bitter attack on the proprietor
of the _Journal_ and it cost him his job, for although Mr.
Pulitzer was in no way friendly to Mr. Hearst, he would not suffer his
newspaper to be degraded by personal animosity on the part of one of
his staff.
One often hears it said that the news columns of a newspaper are
influenced by the business office and that news is frequently colored
or suppressed in the interest of some important advertiser. I suppose
this may be more or less true in the case of some of the small
newspapers that are struggling for their daily existence, but it is
positively untrue in the offices of the larger dailies. I was city
editor for the _Evening World_ for more than twenty years and for
a period city editor of the _Morning World_, and in all that time
no one in the business office with authority ever interfered, even by
suggestion, with the handling of the news. The only approach to it
came from a solicitor of advertising, who had no more influence or
authority in the editorial rooms than the smallest office boy. I have
many times had big advertisers come to me, frequently accompanied by
their lawyer or some man of supposedly great influence, but what they
said or sometimes threatened was wasted effort. If I had permitted them
to intimidate me into suppressing a legitimate news article and Mr.
Pulitzer found it out, I would probably have been sent away to hunt for
a new job.
The greatest pressure that was ever brought to bear on me in the way of
suppressing news was in connection with the exposure of life insurance
methods. It was I who published the first article that opened the way
to exposing the greatest scandal in financial circles that New York
has ever known. It came about in this way: I was living at the Hotel
Majestic and had a party of friends for dinner one evening. As we were
about to go down my wife answered the house telephone and reported
to me that Gage Tarbell was calling and desired to talk with me on a
matter of urgent importance. My wife consented to take our friends
to dinner without me and I went with Tarbell into the library, where
we could converse without interruption. He appeared to be greatly
perturbed. Before stating his object in calling on me he opened his
watch and showed me inside the case the photograph of a beautiful woman.
“That is my mother,” he said, “and before I go any further with what I
have to say, I want to tell you of a pledge I made to her before I left
home to make my own way in the world. I promised her that no matter
what befell me I would never in all my life do a dishonorable act and
I want you to believe me when I tell you that I have never broken that
pledge.”
I listened to him with ill-concealed astonishment wondering what
could have happened to cause him to approach me in such an intimately
confidential way. I had known him in a casual way for several
years, during the period that he had lived in the same hotel and we
had occasionally played billiards together and had chatted socially
in the foyer on a number of occasions, but that was the extent of
our relations, except that we were both admirers of fine horses and
frequently drove our teams side by side on the driveways of Central
Park. With the brief preliminary about the promise he had made to his
mother long years before, he went squarely into the subject he had come
to talk with me about.
It will be recalled that Tarbell was, at the time of which I write,
Vice-President of the Equitable, reputed to be the richest and most
prosperous of any of the large life insurance corporations, with
investments running high into the hundreds of millions. Tarbell had
control of all the agencies. I knew that he must be a man of importance
and that his income must be very large to sustain the extravagant style
in which he had lived ever since our acquaintance began.
He began by briefly sketching his career and telling me of the
magnitude of the business his company had been doing for many years.
Then he plumped something at me that opened my eyes with astonishment.
There had been a row that day in the office between Hyde, who
controlled the stock by right of inheritance from his father, and
Alexander, the President of the Equitable. In a general way Tarbell
told me what the row was about and what it was certain to lead to when
once it got into the courts.
I was amazed that such rascality could have gone on unchecked for so
many years. In all my experience I had never heard of such crookedness
among men of high financial standing and supposed integrity. Hyde I
knew only from having seen him many times driving six horses to a stage
coach through the park, and when he exhibited his prizes at the annual
Horse Show in Madison Square Garden. Alexander I had met several times
and once had been his guest at dinner at the University Club. I had
thought then that he was the handsomest and the most polished gentleman
I ever came in contact with. And could this man be the crook that
Tarbell was picturing to my mind? It seemed unbelievable.
I arranged with Tarbell that he was to be at the old Astor House at
noon the following day, prepared to present proofs of what he had
told me to a newspaper man I would assign to meet him. I sent William
Spear, one of the hardest headed and most persistent investigators on
the staff of the _World_, and Tarbell made good his promise. Part
of what he told Spear appeared in our paper the following day and it
caused the greatest sensation that had been known in financial circles
for many years.
Other papers took it up and the _World_ forced the Governor, in
the face of many obstacles, to begin a public investigation of all the
insurance companies. The history of that scandal is so recent that I
shall not go further into details, for all newspaper readers know how
the reputations of great business men were blasted, some of them dying
of the shame of it, and they know also how the investigation brought
Hughes into the limelight and carried him straight up to the Executive
Mansion at Albany and later on to the Supreme Court of the United
States.
I remember Tarbell saying to me that night at the Majestic: “I will
furnish your paper with full particulars of the greatest business
scandal this country has ever known and what I give you will tear
hitherto unblemished reputations to tatters and smear many men with
the mud of their own iniquity. But mark what I now tell you: When the
exposure that is bound to come is sifted to the bottom, Gage Tarbell is
going to come out of it with character unstained and with a clean bill
of health.”
Soon after the investigation was well under way I went abroad and
was with Mr. Pulitzer in London when the report of the investigating
commission was made public. I read it aloud, every word of it, to my
blind employer and I never knew him to be more deeply interested. I had
told him of Tarbell’s visit to me and how the exposure was begun and
of what Tarbell had predicted would be the outcome so far as he was
personally concerned. Mr. Pulitzer seemed pleased when I read to him
that the report of the commission completely exonerated Tarbell.
As I was leaving the _World_ building one afternoon, I was stopped
by one of the reporters and introduced to the man he was talking with,
Rosenthal, a gambler. I had never seen the fellow before but had read
in the _World_ a few days previous an article he had furnished
that had caused a commotion in police circles and among the gamblers of
the Tenderloin. I listened for awhile to what Rosenthal was saying to
the reporter about threats that were being made to put him out of the
way, and then hurried away to keep an appointment I had in another part
of the city.
I got to my desk early the next morning, as details of the murder of
Rosenthal in front of the Metropole Hotel were being telephoned into
the office by our reporters who were covering the story. The man I had
talked with late the previous afternoon was lying dead in the morgue
and a score of detectives and several assistant district attorneys were
chasing about the Tenderloin in search of the gunmen who had lured him
to the street and punctured him with bullets from their automatics.
Something that Rosenthal had said to me the afternoon before prompted
me to ask Max Fischel, one of our reporters who was telephoning details
of the murder, if he had seen Lieutenant Becker and what he had to say
about the crime.
“Becker is sitting on the steps of the West Forty-seventh Street police
station, across from where I am now telephoning,” reported Fischel. “I
haven’t been able to get much out of him.”
“Ask him to call me on the telephone,” I directed.
Becker called me up a few minutes later, protested that he knew nothing
about the murder or who had done it, and angrily hung up the receiver
when I started to question him. The next day I went up to Police
Headquarters and asked Commissioner Waldo why he permitted Becker to
remain on duty when everyone was connecting his name with the killing
of Rosenthal.
Waldo defended Becker to me and declared that he would not arrest him
when there was no evidence against him except the unsubstantiated
statements of gamblers and their disreputable associates in the
Tenderloin. He told me, also, that he had been down to City Hall and
had talked the matter over with Mayor Gaynor and the Mayor had given
positive orders that Becker was not to be arrested or even suspended
from duty until sufficient evidence, not yet uncovered, should be
developed to justify an arrest.
Waldo declared his belief that Becker was being “framed up” by
friends of the murdered gambler and he told me that Mayor Gaynor was
firmly convinced of his innocence. I do not believe that Waldo was
ever convinced that Becker was responsible for the killing, even
after the policeman was convicted and put to death in the electric
chair. He often told me that he believed that Becker was a victim of
circumstances and the lying testimony of those who perjured themselves
to save their own slimy hides.
The night that Gyp the Blood and his gangster pals were captured in
a Brooklyn flat, Deputy Commissioner Dougherty, who personally led
the raid that resulted in their arrests, called me in my apartments
at the Plaza Hotel to tell me of the capture he had made. He was
telephoning from the flat in which they had been hiding and he offered
to hold them there until I could run over to Brooklyn and join him. It
was a tempting invitation, but I had to decline it to keep a theater
engagement I was not privileged to break.
After Becker and the gunmen had been executed and were in their
graves, District Attorney Whitman and his wife were dining with me one
evening at the Plaza and we got to talking about the Rosenthal case.
He had been elected Governor of New York only a week before our dinner
party. I told him how Waldo felt about Becker, and he related, with
circumstantial detail, a story about the two men that made me gasp with
astonishment.
It was the story of an up-town raid, years before the Rosenthal affair,
and if true, explained in a way the hold Becker had on Waldo at the
time all New York was clamoring for Becker’s arrest.
I took pains to carefully investigate the next day the story told me by
Whitman and I learned that Becker was not concerned in the raid Whitman
told about and that at the time of the occurrence Waldo was serving
as an officer in the Philippines. A week later Whitman and I and our
wives went together to White Sulphur Springs in West Virginia to spend
Thanksgiving week and I told him the result of my investigation.
“I told you the story exactly as it was related to me,” was his only
defense.
“But you didn’t tell it to me as a bit of hearsay gossip,” I retorted.
“You told it as a statement of fact, and coming from the lips of the
District Attorney who prosecuted Becker and the gunmen and who is soon
to be Governor of the State, I had every reason to believe it was true.
I am glad I took the precaution to investigate what you told me and I
suppose that you will be gratified to learn that it is untrue in every
particular, so that you will not again repeat as a fact what is really
only a malicious, lying scandal.”
Governor Whitman changed the subject. On that trip we had a long
and earnest discussion about prohibition and, in the light of later
developments, I am impressed by the far-sightedness of my companion, or
it may have been only a lucky guess, when he predicted that the day was
not far off when Congress would declare for nation-wide prohibition.
I couldn’t conceive of such a thing coming to pass in my lifetime and
said so.
“There will come general prohibition in all of the States before my
term of office as Governor has expired,” was his prophetic reply.
At luncheon, the following day, after drinking his wine, Whitman
raised his empty glass and looking me squarely in the face, exclaimed
with considerable feeling: “I assume that you, who never indulge in
intoxicants, think that I drink more than I should. Then listen to
what I am now saying: On the first day of January next I shall be
Governor of the State of New York, and from that day on I become a
prohibitionist in fact as well as theory.”
Governor Whitman prophesied accurately in regard to what Congress
would do; but he missed fire in his prophecy about himself.
One night I was dining with Mayor Mitchel. He was smarting under the
sting of what had appeared in some of the newspapers in connection with
his transactions with Senator Reynolds in the purchase by the city
of Dreamland at Coney Island and a tract of land at Rockaway. He was
plainly upset.
“I tell you, Chapin, that the worst iniquity in this city to-day is
yellow journalism,” he exclaimed, bringing his clenched fist down on
the table with a thump that set the glassware to jigging.
I happened to know that there was some justification for what had
appeared about the Mayor and Reynolds. It was the only smudge on his
administration of city affairs, and I told him so. I told him, also,
that it had become the fashion for men who didn’t like what newspapers
printed about them to call the paper “yellow,” but that I could never
make up my mind what “yellow,” as applied to newspapers, meant. If it
meant that the newspaper printed lies and manufactured sensations that
were unfounded, I knew of no such conditions that existed in any of the
New York newspapers. I told him that I believed that all of them meant
to be fair and truthful at all times and that no paper that was run
with any different policy could hold its circulation.
Then I told him my ideas of what is meant by “yellow journalism” and
went back to forty years or more of my own experience. I told him of
the Chicago _Times_, which was run on the policy of “raise hell
and sell newspapers,” and mentioned that headline which shocked readers
of the newspaper--“Jerked to Jesus,” over the execution of a murderer
who became a religious enthusiast just before the hangman broke his
neck.
I told the Mayor something more about the Chicago _Times_ that
appeared to interest him. It was the story of the burning of Hooley’s
Theater. It thrilled Chicago one morning and then caused almost a riot
when it turned out that the story was a vicious fake.
Frank Wilkie, father of a recent Chief of the United States Secret
Service, was one of the most brilliant writers in Chicago. He was for
many years on the staff of the _Times_. One night he went to the
box-office of Hooley’s Theater and was told that the seats were all
sold. He took pains to ascertain that the statement was untrue and that
it was another way of denying him free tickets.
Wilkie went to his office and wrote five or six columns of the
most graphic description of a fire that I have ever read. Hooley’s
Theater had burned during a night performance and many had perished
in the flames because there were not enough exits. A list of those
who were dead or horribly burned contained the names of many of the
most prominent men and women in the city. All Chicago who read the
_Times_ that morning was horrified at the appalling disaster until
it came to the bottom of the final column where, in very small type,
was a line in a bracket:
“(This is what may happen).”
Then Chicago grew angry and threatened to tear the _Times_ office
apart and mob its editor. Old Wilbur F. Storey sat in his sanctum and
chuckled. He had “raised hell and sold newspapers.”
That is what I call “yellow journalism,” although the _Times_
defended the outrage by declaring that the theater was notoriously
unsafe and a menace to the lives of all who patronized it. Wretched
and inexcusable fake though it was, prompted by no other motive than
to “get even” for not receiving free tickets of admission, the article
resulted in awakening the authorities to the fact that the theater
really was unsafe and “Uncle Dick” Hooley had to close and make
extensive alterations.
What a pity that New York was so ungrateful to Mitchel. He was by far
the best Mayor the city ever had in my time. He had high ideals and
purposes and worked with untiring zeal for the betterment of New York
and her people. I know of no man, either in political or civil life,
who worked so hard as he did during his term of office.
I called on Mayor Mitchel in City Hall one day and asked him to appoint
Magistrate Herbert to a vacancy on the bench of Special Sessions
Court. There were seventeen candidates. Frank Polk, then Corporation
Counsel and later Assistant Secretary of State, came into the Mayor’s
private office just after I had stated the object of my visit.
“Come on in, Frank,” said the Mayor. “Chapin is asking me to promote
Herbert to Judge of Special Sessions. What do you think about it?”
“Herbert is a fine man,” replied Polk, “but I have another candidate
and therefore am prejudiced. However, if Chapin is boosting Herbert I
imagine that my candidate and all the others will have to wait, for I
don’t see how you can very well refuse.”
“I have no intention of refusing,” said the Mayor. “I have asked many
favors of Chapin and this is the first he has ever asked of me. Is
Herbert a Catholic?” The Mayor addressed his question to me.
“I assume that he is, but don’t know,” I replied.
“Is he a Democrat?”
“I don’t know that, either. I have never asked him what his religion
or his politics are. I only know that he is decent and I think he is
deserving of the promotion and will make a good judge.”
Herbert telephoned to me a few evenings later that he had been summoned
to the City Hall and that he had met the Mayor for the first time and
had received his appointment. He is still on the bench.
It was Herbert who introduced me to Sing Sing. Some years before any
thought came to me that I should some day call it “home,” Herbert
invited me to visit the famous old bastile on the banks of the Hudson.
A former court officer of his, John Kennedy, was then warden of Sing
Sing. Herbert sent word to him that we were coming and the warden
met us at the railway station with his official carriage. It was so
different when I came again that the event is rooted deep in my memory.
We had dinner in the warden’s residence and it was then that I first
met Father Cashin, the prison chaplain, with whom I was destined to
later in life become so intimately associated. I recall how uneasy I
felt when the warden informed us that the nice looking chap who waited
on table and passed the food to me so politely was a convict, serving
a life sentence for murder. It gave one a creepy sensation among the
nerves of his spinal column.
After dinner we looked through the prison, guided by old “P. K.”
Connaughton. I recall the horror I felt when I saw the stone holes
where the prisoners were confined when they were not at work. It seemed
incredible that human beings could live in such dank and smelly cells
and not go mad or waste away with disease. I remember saying to Judge
Herbert that if all of the judges in the Criminal Courts of New York
would come up and inspect the cells they would have little desire to
send men here, save in extreme cases. He agreed with me.
Yet, for a year and a half I have slept every night in one of these
cells and have slept as soundly as ever I did in the Plaza Hotel, which
proves the old saying that “one can get used to hanging in time.”
One day I went to the French Line pier to say bon voyage to some
friends who were sailing on _La Bourgoyne_, then one of the most
magnificent of ocean steamships. I saw her draw away from the pier,
her decks alive with happy voyagers, band playing, flags fluttering,
passengers waving farewells to loved ones left behind. Aboard the ship
I had picked up a printed passenger list. I thrust it into a pocket and
started to return to the _World_ office.
As I was leaving the pier, I encountered Judge Dillon, one of the
ablest lawyers in New York. He was for many years attorney for Jay
Gould and for Russell Sage. It was in the home of the latter that I
first met him. I walked with him to his carriage. He told me that he
had come down to see his wife and youngest daughter off for Europe.
I imagined that he appeared troubled and anxious as if he had a
premonition of impending peril. That impression would probably not
have lingered in my memory all these intervening years if _La
Bourgoyne_ had sailed safely to the end of her voyage.
Two days later a telegram was brought to me at my desk in the
_Evening World_ office. It was a brief message from our
correspondent at Halifax, telling of a terrible tragedy at sea. _La
Bourgoyne_ had been run into by a sailing vessel in a smother of
fog and had gone down, drowning many of her crew and nearly all of her
first cabin passengers.
Our correspondent had been standing on the dock at Halifax and had
sighted a vessel sailing into the harbor with colors at half mast. He
sprang aboard of a tug and went out to her. The flag at half mast was
quickly explained. The vessel had sunk _La Bourgoyne_ and was
bringing in the few survivors that had been rescued.
The correspondent didn’t wait for details, but hurried his tug back
to land and ran for a telegraph office. In ten minutes his message of
disaster and death was before me. I rushed it to the composing room to
be put into type and telephoned the mechanical forces to get ready for
an important “extra.” I wrote a headline and directed that it be set in
the largest type we had. There instantly flashed through my mind the
passenger list I had brought back from _La Bourgoyne_ and that was
rushed up to the typesetters.
In less than fifteen minutes the “extra” was in the hands of the
stereotypers and a few minutes later it was on the presses. The presses
ran all day and far into the night, stopping only that additional
details might be added to the greatest sensation of the year. I was
the first in this country except telegraph operators to learn of the
disaster. The other newspapers and the press associations got their
first intimation of it when the _Evening World_ extras appeared in
the streets.
As the extra went to press I thought of poor Judge Dillon and what the
sinking of _La Bourgoyne_ meant to him. I got him on the telephone
and broke the news as gently as I could, bidding him hope, for the list
of survivors aboard the sailing vessel had not yet come and there was a
chance that other ships would pick up additional survivors.
I got no response after breaking the news to him. The operator reported
that his receiver was off the hook and she could get no reply. I was
too busy at the time to devote further time to him, but I learned
afterward that he was so overcome that he sank feebly into a chair and
had to be helped to a lounge. This, I learned under rather peculiar
circumstances.
More than a year had passed since the sinking of _La Bourgoyne_
and my wife and I were having Thanksgiving dinner at the Hotel Savoy.
The dining-room was overcrowded and so hot that my wife swooned at the
table and would have fallen from her chair had I not caught her in my
arms. The incident attracted so much attention from the other diners
that I motioned to two waiters to aid me in carrying her in her chair
from the room. A lady at a nearby table followed and directed that my
wife be taken to her apartment. I protested and urged her to return to
the dining-room, but she insisted on having her way. She put my wife in
her bed and applied restoratives until consciousness returned and while
we waited for my wife to recover she told me that she was in mourning
for her mother and sister who were lost on _La Bourgoyne_. She was
a married daughter of Judge Dillon.
I related the incident of my telephoning news of the disaster to her
father and she told me what happened to him when I did. She was one
of the most gracious and charming of women. We chatted until long
after midnight and when I thought my wife was sufficiently recovered
to be removed to our home in a carriage, she wouldn’t listen to it,
but insisted on keeping her the remainder of the night. She brought
her home the next day and came frequently to visit us. A few years
afterward she died.
Returning to the topic with which I began this chapter--the alleged
degeneracy of American newspapers--I might add that the only noticeable
deterioration, if any really exists, is in the writing of news by
reporters. Viewed from a distance and away from a desk in the editorial
room, my impression is that the standard of writing is not so high as
it was before the European war.
One reason for this is that many of the best writers on the New
York newspapers enlisted at the first call for volunteers. Many of
them never returned. Some sleep beneath the stars that shine on the
battlefields of France and Russia. Many found more profitable fields
of activity. I don’t suppose that they have become secretaries to
wealthy hod carriers, but I know that hundreds of clever men were lured
into publicity work for great industrial concerns and that hundreds
have found lucrative employment in the publicity end of motion picture
production. In one of the largest of the cinema companies are more than
a half dozen who were with me on the _Evening World_. The general
manager was a thirty-dollar-a-week reporter and the general sales
manager was a four-dollar office boy who came to me in knee pants and
grew to manhood in our office. These two are now earning fifteen or
twenty thousand dollars a year.
Newspapers have not kept pace with other lines of business in the way
of salaries and they have let many of their best writers slip away
from them, recruiting the ranks with inexperienced graduates of the
schools of journalism that have sprung up all over the country. In
the mechanical branches, all of them unionized, publishers have been
compelled to grant such large increases that printers and pressmen
are now paid almost as much as editors and the editors and reporters
have, in many instances, found a better market for the product of their
brains and energy.
What I regret most is that publishers have found it necessary to
increase the selling price of their newspapers. I believe in the
one-cent newspaper that even the poorest can afford. I believe in the
widest possible circulation that newspapers can attain. Papers like the
_World_ and _Times_ should have a daily circulation in excess
of a million copies. They cannot get and hold it unless they sell their
papers for a cent. Past experience proves this.
Publishers justify the raise in price by the great increase in the cost
of raw material since the war began. I think it would have been wiser
to make the advertisers pay the increased cost. In times like these,
when many of the smaller newspapers have been compelled to suspend
publication because of the shortage of print paper, advertising rates
are altogether too cheap when a candy shop in New York can afford to
purchase two full pages of advertising space in all of the leading
newspapers, and where a dozen or more department stores fill a page or
more each every day in the week.
Make the advertiser pay! Let the poor read! The more newspapers that
are read the less Bolsheviki and I. W. W.