Table Of ContentLORDS
OF THE
PRESS
GEORGE SELDES .
v
T,-40RII)S
OF T :F E,
PR S - S
19
New York
JULIAN MESSNER, Inc.
PUBLISHED BY JULIAN MESSNER, INC.
8 WEST 40TH STREET, NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT 1938 BY GEORGE SELDES
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY MONTAUK BOOKBINDING CORPORATION, NEW YORK
TO
THE AMERICAN NEWSPAPER GUILD
and others interested in a free press
Contents
PART I
LORDS OF THE PRESS
CHAPTER PAGE
i. The House of Lords . . . g
2. Patterson-Lord of Tabloidia . . . 20
g. Power of the Middle West . .
41
4. Little Lord Northcliffe . 65
5. California Press and Landlord . . . 71
6. Lord Howard and His Empire 76
7. The Light That Failed 87
8. A Jewish Press Lord 103
g. Lord Baltimore 1o8
i 0. The American Thunderer 112
i i. The Sun Grows Cold 142
12. Stern's Fight for Liberalism 155
13. Special Interests in Chicago 177
14. The Herald Tribune, Cuba and Fascism . . . . 186
15. Gannett: Chain Lord 203
16. Boston: Brahmins, Bourgeoisie and Boobs . . . 214
17. Farewell: Lord of San Simeon . . . 227
18. Annenberg 240
1g. Northwest: Liberal Despite the Press . 242
20. Speaker in the House of Lords 254
21. Post-Dispatch, or Absentee Landlordism . . . . 264
22. William Allen White: Anti-Press Lord . . . . 272
PART II
SERVANTS OF. THE LORDS
Journalistic Noblesse: Foreign Correspondents . 283
The Washington Galley Slaves 294
vii
Vlll CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
3. The Plutogogues 3o3
4. The Wages of Reaction 316
5. 1936 and the Columnists 331
6. From Reds to Riches 343
7. "Treason" on the Times 355
8. Freedom for Newspapermen 370
PART III
BATTLES OF THE LORDS
1. Let Newspapermen Run the Newspapers . . . 381
2. Subsidy: Weapon for a Free Press 384
3- Ten Tests for a Free Press 386
4- Investigate the Press Lords . . . . 394
Labor Must Fight the Press Lords 399
5.
Index 403
PART I
LORDS OF THE PRESS
CHAPTER i
The House of Lords
ONCE every year the American Newspaper Publishers Asso-
ciation, the House of Lords of our press, meets in secret.
No one cares to spy on it, no newspapermen are present, no
photographers interrupt, no representatives of a yellow
journal harass or intimidate the members . It would be use-
less. If a reporter found out what plans are discussed, what
plots are made, what schemes proposed, no newspaper would
publish the disclosures, sensational as they might be . Noth-
ing is sacred to the American press but itself.
And yet these secret meetings of our organized publishers
rank among the most important actions against the general
welfare of the American people ever taken (legally) by any
small national group in our time. But since the press pub-
lishes the news, true or false or half-way, about everything
in the world except itself, the American public knows noth-
ing about what the rulers of public opinion annually de-
cide for it.
Only rarely do the millions learn or sense the truth about
the activities of this group of leaders. In the repudiation of
the press in the 1936 election there was a symptom of the
universal suspicion and growing anger of the public, but
this awakening was made possible by the fact that millions
were already pledged to the party the majority of newspapers
attacked, and the radio was used extensively, and there were
other means of breaking the press offensive. In social, rather
than political, issues there is no means by which the public
can defeat the dictation of the press.
3
4 LORDS OF THE PRESS
The publishers' meetings are secret because their actions
cannot bear the light of publicity. Three hundred and sixty
days in the year the publishers speak editorially for open
covenants openly arrived at, whether in international rela-
tions or in the advertising business, but every April they lock
the doors and make a hypocritical paradox out of their own
ideals.
We know that in the open meetings they approve annually
of "freedom of the press as the bulwark of our civilization,"
and that in the closed meetings they discuss ways and means
of fighting labor and their own employees who demand
higher wages or perhaps better light or decent toilet arrange-
ments. We do know that in the open meetings they pledge
themselves to honesty and truth and the whole bagful of
tricks in the ethical code of their profession, and they also
discuss the cost of paper, the ways to increase advertising and
gain circulation, and other purely materialistic subjects
which are necessary if any press, free or kept, is to survive.
But it is somewhat of a shock to learn that in the closed ses-
sions they defend the employment of child labor, they take
united action against a Congressional measure which would
keep drugmakers from poisoning or cheating the American
people, and they gloat over their own strike-breaking de-
partment which offers scabs not only to members but to
anyone who wants to fight the unions .
One of the most recent secret meetings was devoted to
nothing but war on the American Newspaper Guild, the
association of newspaper workers which offended the pub-
lishers when it joined the American Federation of Labor and
drove them into hysterics when it later joined the Committee
for Industrial ,Organization. In all American business and
industry today there is probably no instance of such bitter-
ness, such conflict, such hatred, such opposition, and such
war to the throat as between the newspaper workers and the
newspaper owners. The amusing angle to this story is that
the publishers still print that cockeyed falsehood about the
THE HOUSE OF LORDS 5
interests of capital and labor being identical. It certainly isn't
in their own line.
What conspiratorial plans are made to fight labor at the
secret sessions we can judge best by what happens. We have
seen such united action as an attack on Congress when it
considered passing the Wagner Labor Act which is regarded
as a Magna Carta of the working people of America. We
have watched the press of the country condemn it after it
passed. And, moreover, we have seen the publishers openly
defy the law, declare it unconstitutional, and, when the
Guild took the test case to the Supreme Court and the law
was declared constitutional, we have seen the publishers
inaugurate a movement to repeal or alter or emasculate this
law.
We have seen the publishers declare the National Labor
Relations Board unconstitutional long before the Supreme
Court declared it constitutional. We have seen the publishers
unite to fight any and every attempt to increase taxes on the
rich and alleviate the burdens of the poor. All sorts of tran-
scendental humanitarian poppycock has been invented by the
highly paid editorial writers and rich columnists to hide
this fundamental conflict of the Haves and Havenots in
America. But the fact is becoming known to the public that
the press lords of America are the champions of the former
while still flying the pre-war flag of "service to the common
people."
There are of course many men of the highest ideals in
the membership. But so far as can be learned they have not
been able in the past to gain their points even in the most
flagrant cases of violation of journalistic ethics.
The La Follette Civil Liberties Investigation Committee
has given documentary evidence that four of the biggest
newspapers in the country had employed spies or thugs, but
no action was taken by the publishers' association .
Some years ago one of its members was found guilty in a
Federal court of theft. His news service had stolen the news
