Chapter LII: The Press and the Socialists

The particular kind of radical who is most disliked by our newspapers is of course the Socialist. The Socialist meets the class-consciousness of the newspapers with another class-consciousness, almost as definite and aggressive. The Socialist is noisy; also the Socialist has a habit of printing pamphlets and leaflets, thus trespassing on newspaper profits. Every newspaper differs in the names it puts on its “son-of-a-bitch list,” but every newspaper agrees in putting the most conspicuous Socialists on its “son-of-a-bitch list.” The Hearst newspapers pose as friends of the people; they print a great deal of radical clamor, but there is a standing order in all Hearst offices that American Socialism shall never be mentioned favorably. All newspapers have a rule that if any Socialist get into trouble, it shall be exploited to the full; when Socialists don’t get into trouble often enough to suit them, they make Socialists out of people who _do_ get into trouble. Says Max Sherover:

When the King of Greece was shot by an insane and irresponsible man,
the “New York Times” and hundreds of other papers ran the headline:
“KING OF GREECE ASSASSINATED BY A SOCIALIST.” And although it was
proven conclusively that the assassin hadn’t even heard of Socialism,
none of these papers saw fit to retract their lie.

When the great novelist, David Graham Phillips, was shot by one
Goldsborough, every paper in New York knew that Goldsborough not only
was not a Socialist, but had often spoken against Socialism. They also
knew that the latter had a personal grievance against the author.
Notwithstanding these facts, the “New York World” and other papers
came out with headlines: “DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS SHOT BY SOCIALIST.”
None of the papers retracted that lie.

When Theodore Roosevelt was shot at in Milwaukee, the Associated Press
sent broadcast the news that a Socialist had assaulted the Colonel.
Though it was proven by the evidence of the assailant’s own statement
that he was an affiliated member of a Democratic organization in New
York, that he had always voted the Democrat ticket, the “New York
Evening Telegram” ran the headline: “ROOSEVELT SHOT BY SOCIALIST.”
This the “Telegram” never retracted.

Perhaps the most tragic illustration of this kind of thing was the “Chicago Anarchists.” There were one or two Anarchists among them; the rest were Socialists, perfectly innocent working-class educators, who were railroaded to the gallows by public hysteria, deliberately incited by the newspapers of Chicago. Finley Peter Dunne, creator of “Mr. Dooley,” was a reporter on one of these newspapers, and ten or twelve years ago he narrated to me some of the things he had witnessed, the most outrageous inventions deliberately cooked up. His voice trembled as he told about it. I asked him why he did not write the story, and his answer was that he had often tried to write it, but was blinded by his own tears.

The same thing was done in the Debs railway strike of 1893. Every act of violence that was committed was hailed by the newspapers of the country as part of a terrorist campaign by the labor-unions. Therefore the public permitted Grover Cleveland to smash this strike. Afterwards Cleveland’s commission of investigation put the chief of police of Chicago on the witness-stand, and heard him testify that the Railway Managers’ Association had hired “thugs, thieves, and ex-convicts” as their deputies, and that these men had set fire to freight-cars, and had cut the hose of the Chicago firemen.

It would not be too much to say that American capitalist newspapers sent Eugene V. Debs to jail in 1893 and made him into a Socialist. And now in 1919, when he is sent to jail again, they help to keep him there! On the day that he is sent to prison, they spread wide an interview to the effect that he will call a general strike of labor to get himself out of jail; and this interview is quoted by the Attorney-General as reason for refusing amnesty to Debs. But Debs gave no such interview. He denied it as soon as he saw it, but of course you did not see his denial, unless you are a reader of the Socialist papers.

The “Appeal to Reason” is preparing to have a suit brought against the Associated Press on this issue. It reprints a letter from Debs to the general manager of the Associated Press, written in 1912, protesting against a false story to the effect that the “Appeal” is suspending publication. This report, obviously a great injury to the “Appeal,” the Associated Press refused to deny. Says Debs:

Am I to infer from your letter that the Associated Press aims to deal
fairly, honestly and justly with all people, to disseminate the truth,
and taboo what is false? I happen to know differently by personal
experience. If there is in this country a strictly capitalist class
institution it is the Associated Press.

Pardon me if I give you just an instance or two of my personal
experience. During the heat of the Pullman strike, when the Pullman
cars were under boycott, the Associated Press sent out a dispatch over
all the country that I had ridden out of Chicago like a royal prince
in a Pullman Palace car while my dupes were left to walk the ties. A
hundred witnesses who were at the depot when I left testified that the
report was a lie, but I could never get the Associated Press to
correct it. This lie cost me more pain and trouble than you can well
imagine, and for it all I have to thank the Associated Press, and I
have not forgotten it.

During the last national campaign, at a time when I was away from
home, the Associated Press spread a report over the country to the
effect that scab labor had been employed to do some work at my home.
It was a lie, and so intended. I had the matter investigated by the
chief union organizer of the district, who reported that it was a lie,
but I was never able to have the correction put upon the wires. That
lie is still going to this day, and for that, and still others I could
mention, I have also to thank the capitalistically owned and
controlled Associated Press.

You might think this a pretty small lie for a big organization like the Associated Press to bother with; but if you think that, you do not know the Associated Press. Hardly ever do I mention this organization to a radical that I do not hear a new story, frequently just such a petty and spiteful story as the non-union labor in the home of Eugene Debs. In Pasadena lives my friend Gaylord Wilshire, and I mention the Associated Press to him, and he laughs. “Did I ever tell you my story of York, Pennsylvania?” “What did you do in York, Pennsylvania?” “Nothing,” says Wilshire; “that’s the story.” It appears that he was on a Socialist lecture-tour, and the schedule was badly arranged, the trains were late, and so he cut out York, Pennsylvania, and on the date in question was up in Maine. But the Associated Press sent broadcast over the country a detailed report that the editor of “Wilshire’s Magazine” had spoken in York, Pennsylvania, had denounced the courts, had offered ten thousand dollars for a debate with Mark Hanna, and had been mobbed by the citizens of York!

You will say, perhaps, that this must have been a mistake. Yes, but how comes it that the Associated Press makes all its mistakes one way? Why is there never a mistake favorable to a Socialist? Why does not the Associated Press report that Gene Debs has rescued a child from drowning; or that Gaylord Wilshire has been awarded a gold medal by a chamber of commerce; or that Upton Sinclair has been made a bishop of the Episcopal Church for writing “The Profits of Religion”?

One of the most interesting illustrations of newspaper lying about Socialists occurred during a May-day meeting in Union Square, New York, a few years ago. It is interesting because we may go behind the scenes and watch the wires being pulled. It appears that police arrangements for this meeting were in charge of Chief Inspector Schmittberger, an old-style Tammany clubber; but he could not handle the affair in the usual fashion of the New York police, because the administration of Mayor Mitchel had ordained “free speech.” Schmittberger had his clubbers hidden in an excavation of the subway, ready to sally forth when the meeting gave excuse. But the meeting did not give excuse, and some of the policemen grew impatient, and sallied out without orders and started clubbing. My friend Isaac Russell, who was reporting the day’s events for the “New York Times,” was standing by Schmittberger’s side, and heard him shout to these unauthorized clubbers. Says Russell:

I ran beside Schmittberger into the fracas, and he yanked and pulled
cops over backwards to break up the thing. And finally he got them
under control, and then gave them fits for acting without orders.

Russell, being an honest man, went back to the “Times” office, and wrote a story of how the New York police had been seized by a panic, and had broken out without orders; and that story went through. But it happened that up in the editorial rooms of the “Times” somebody was writing the conventional “Times” editorial, denouncing the Socialists for their May-day violence, and praising the police for their heroism. It never occurred to the editorial writer that the news editors could be so careless as to pass a story like Isaac Russell’s! So next day here was this comical discrepancy, and an organization of magazine editors, the “Ragged Edge Club,” invited Isaac Russell to come and explain to them the war between the news columns and the editorial columns of the “Times”! Russell was called up before his boss and, as he says, “roasted to a frazzle” for having written the truth. Arthur Greaves, city editor of the “Times,” told him that he had “got off all wrong in that situation.” But Russell’s job was saved—and how do you think? The police commissioner of New York came out with a formal statement, denouncing the police, and saying that they had acted contrary to his orders!

Or take the experience of A. M. Simons, reporting an International Socialist Congress at Stuttgart, Germany, for the United Press, supposed to be a liberal organization. Simons received a dispatch from the London headquarters of his organization:

Wire three hundred words on probable split of Congress into Bebelists,
Herveists, and Laborites.

And Simons continues:

Now, there was not a single human being in that congress that ever
dreamed there would be a split. The particular question on which they
were supposed to split was passed by a unanimous vote. I sent a
straight news story out. At the close I put these three words: “Split
talk rot.” Judge of my surprise when I landed in New York to find that
that story of the split of the Socialist Congress had been carried
over the United Press wires to the paper I was serving!

And now, as this book is going to press, on November 11th, 1919, the Associated Press sends from the town of Centralia, Washington, a series of dispatches telling how I. W. W. members fired from windows of their meeting hall upon an Armistice Day parade of returned soldier-boys. The dispatch does not say directly that the firing was done in cold blood; it simply tells in elaborate detail about the firing, and says not one word about incidents occurring before the firing. It leaves it to be assumed that the firing was done in cold blood, and the whole country does assume that, and a perfect frenzy seizes the returned soldiers and the government authorities; they raid I. W. W. meeting rooms in a hundred places, and beat up the members and throw them into jail. And I who understand the infamies of our Journalism wait patiently, knowing that in due course the truth will begin to leak. And sure enough, three days later comes an Associated Press dispatch from Centralia, Washington, mentioning, quite casually and incidentally, that Dr. Frank Bickford, _one of the marchers_, testified at the coroner’s inquest that “_the former soldiers attacked the I. W. W. hall before any shots were fired_.” And the Hearst service reports the same news with the comment that “no special significance was attached to this testimony”!

Later: It appears that the soldiers were battering in the door, and the first shots were fired through it.