RACY CHARGES MADE BY RICH
RACY CHARGES MADE BY RICH
RACY CHARGES MADE BY RICH
Says Wife Sneaked Paramour Into Room to Beat Him.
She Avers He Made Love to Widow in a Flat.
Sensational Accusations in Wealthy Man’s Fight.
Also the “Times” has deep convictions on the subject of Economics. I quote about half of one editorial:
MY LADY POVERTY
MY LADY POVERTY
MY LADY POVERTY
There is many a thing in this world much dreaded by us that we have no need to dread. We often regard as a foe that which is really a friend. And how many times we think of as being ugly that which is indeed beautiful.
Perverted thus as we are in our natures, how unwelcome at the door of life is the presence of poverty. Next to sickness and disease we dread to be poor. And yet poverty is not a curse but a blessing.
Have you ever dwelt upon the sweet dignity and the beauty with which St. Francis of Assisi clothed poverty? “My Lady Poverty” he called it, giving to his rags and his hunger a personality, and taking that personality into his heart.
And richly did his Lady Poverty reward Francis for his devotion and his love. She cast out the dross from his nature, made life unspeakably sweet and joyous for him, endeared him to the world forever and immortalized him as few men have ever been immortalized....
It must be that you will have thought often, too, of old blind Homer who begged his way from door to door in the old times of Greece. He was the master singer. He was the greatest, by far, of all the poets that sung before him or that since have sung. Not Sappho, nor Shakespeare, nor Tasso, nor Longfellow nor any one of all that palm-crowned company was the peer of old blind Homer begging his way from door to door.
Now, had not My Lady Poverty claimed Homer as a lover, had he been rich, with a palace to live in and servants to wait upon him, there would have been no Odyssey, no Iliad.
It was My Lady Poverty that lured Schiller to his garret and the crust that was there; it was she who wove her fingers in Goldsmith’s hair when he wandered through Erin playing for pennies on his flute.
So, if some day, there shall be some among us who will wake to find the Lady Poverty standing at the door, think not that fate will then have served us ill. Fling back the creaking hinges and let her in. Make room for her gracious presence in the wide guest chambers of your heart.
This, you perceive, is exquisitely written and deeply felt. In order to appreciate fully its passionate and consecrated sincerity you need to be informed that the newspaper whichfeatures it boasts a profit of something like a million dollars a year; this income being derived from the publication of the filthiest patent medicine advertisements, of pages upon pages of news about moving-picture rubbish, real estate speculations, oil stocks, gold mines, every kind of swindling—all paid for.
I shall have much to say in later chapters about the “Times” fortune and the way it was made. For the moment I give one anecdote, to round out my picture.
My authority is a gentleman who a few years ago was managing editor of the “Los Angeles Herald.” The “Herald” was then a morning paper, a rival of the “Times,” and was controlled and practically owned by the Farmers’ & Merchants’ National Bank of Los Angeles. The president of this institution is the biggest banker on the coast, and was engaged, with the connivance of the newspapers, in unloading upon the city for two and a half million dollars a water company which was practically worthless. It was found that the “Herald” was not paying, and the banker decided to reduce the price from five cents to two cents. But Otis of the “Times” got wind of it, and notified the banker that if he lowered the price of the “Herald,” the “Times” would at once open up on the water company swindle. “Oh, very well, General,” replied the banker. “If that’s the way you feel about it, we’ll forget it.” So the price of the “Herald” stayed up, and the paper lost money, and finally Otis bought it for a song, ran it for a while in pretended rivalry to the “Times,” and then sold it at a profit, upon condition that it be made an evening paper, so that it should not interfere with the “Times.”
Reading this, you will not be surprised to learn that the particular page upon which appeared the rhapsody to “My Lady Poverty” bears the name of the particular “Times” editor who told me: “It has been so long since I have written anything that I believe, that I don’t think I would know the sensation!”
CHAPTER XXXIVTHE DAILY CAT-AND-DOG FIGHT
There are other newspapers published in this “Roof-garden of the World.” There is the Hearst newspaper, the “Los Angeles Examiner,” which publishes the editorials of Arthur Brisbane, and follows, somewhat haltingly, the Hearst propaganda for government ownership. But so far as its local policy is concerned, it is entirely commercial, its fervors are for the local industry, of “boosting.” It has an especially annoying habit of disguising its advertisements so as to trap you into reading them as news. You will be informed in headlines of a notable event in local history, and when you read, you learn that Johnnie Jones, of 2249 S. Peanut Street, sold all his chickens within two hours by using “Examiner Want Ads.” Again, you read a headline about an aviator just returned from France, and what you learn about him is that Jones & Co. have put out twenty thousand pictures of him in twenty thousand boxes of “Frizzlies.” “This confection is especially delicious,” says our naïve “Examiner.” And now, as I write, some editor has an inspiration, and day after day I am confronted with an illustrated article: “Aspirants to Shapely Limbs Title. Who owns the most beautiful limbs on the stage? Look them over.”
Later on I shall tell of the “Examiner’s” treatment of various radicals. For the present I am dealing with personal experiences, so I relate that in the spring of 1919 I was invited to speak at a mass-meeting of the Jews of Los Angeles, in protest against the pogroms in Poland. The other speakers at this meeting expressed indignation at these pogroms; I endeavored to explain them. The French bankers, who now rule the continent of Europe, are engaged in setting up a substitute for the Russian Tsardom on the east of Germany; and this new Polish empire is using the Jews as a scapegoat, precisely as the Russian Tsardom did. Referring to President Wilson, I said; “I have supported him through the war, and I am not one of those who are denouncing him now. I think he has made a pitiful failure in Europe, but I understand thatfailure; it is due in part to the fact that the American people do not realize what is going on in Europe, and do not make clear their determination that American money shall not be poured out in support of reaction and imperialism.”
Such was the substance of my argument. Next day the “Los Angeles Times” did not mention it; while the “Los Angeles Examiner” reported it with outraged indignation, under the scare headline: “SINCLAIR ATTACKS WILSON.” In this form it was telegraphed all over the country. The amusing feature of the story is that the “Examiner” itself was at this time attacking Wilson most venomously—both on its editorial page and in its Washington dispatches. But it did not want my aid; it would not permit a Socialist to “attack” the President of the United States!
In various cities there are various standards prevailing for the conduct of newspapers in their rivalries with one another. In New York the rule is that they never praise one another, and only denounce one another in extreme cases. One thing they absolutely never do is to mention one another’s libel suits. But here in Los Angeles the rivalry between the “Times” and “Examiner” is a daily cat-and-dog fight. Not merely do they spread each other’s libel suits over the front page; they charge each other with numerous crimes, they call names and make faces like two ill-mannered children. And they keep this up, day after day, for weeks, so that it is impossible to get the news of world-events in Southern California without having their greeds and spites thrust upon you.
One day you read in the “Times” that the “Examiner” is dressing up agents as soldiers, and circulating slanders against the “Times.” Next day there begins in the “Examiner” a series of cartoons of Harry Andrews, managing editor of the “Times,” representing him in grotesque and disgusting positions. Next day you read in the “Times” that William Bayard Hale, a former correspondent of the “Examiner,” is charged with having taken German money. Next day you read in the “Examiner” that Harry Carr, assistant managing editor of the “Times,” has been shown to have had his travelling expenses in Germany paid by the German government; also that Willard Huntington Wright, former literary editor of the “Times,” is accused of having taken German money. Next day you read in the “Examiner” that the mayor of Los Angeles has been indicted upon a charge of taking bribe-money from negrobrothel-keepers, and that his chief confederate is Horace Karr, former political editor of the “Times.” Next day you read in the “Times” about this same Horace Karr—only he isn’t a former political editor of the “Times,” he is a former reporter for the “Examiner”! This particular civic scandal is spread over a page of both papers for a month, the “Examiner” playing it up, the “Times” playing it down, both of them telling patent falsehoods, and both of them continuing, day after day, to describe Horace Karr as a former employe of the other!
One of the funniest instances of this rivalry occurred recently upon the death of Mrs. Phoebe Hearst, mother of William Randolph Hearst, owner of the “Examiner.” I made a study of the “Examiner” and the “Times” next morning. The “Examiner” gave three columns on the first page and five columns on the third page to accounts of Mrs. Hearst and her virtues. There were two pictures, one a picture of Mrs. Hearst, occupying fifty-eight square inches, and the other a picture of “the family of William Randolph Hearst visiting their grandmother,” this occupying forty square inches.
The “Times,” of course, was not so much interested in Mrs. Hearst. It gave her only the amount of space which it would give to any California millionaire who died—that is, two columns. The picture of Mrs. Hearst occupied only twenty-four square inches, and the contrast with the picture in the “Examiner” was most diverting. The picture in the “Examiner” showed a magnificent and stately lady, some duchess by Gainsborough. How the picture in the “Times” originated I do not know, but it appeared as if the editor of the “Times” had said to his artist: “Find me a picture of the ugliest old woman you have on file; or better yet, get me a picture of a grim old man with a double chin, and draw me a woman’s bonnet on top of him, and a woman’s dress over his shoulders, and label it ‘Mrs. Phoebe Apperson Hearst’.”
Also there are three afternoon papers in Los Angeles—all three sensational, all three commercial, with hardly the pretense of a public policy. There was brought to my attention the case of Raoul Palma, a young Mexican Socialist of an especially fine type, who had earned the enmity of the Los Angeles police by persisting in speaking on the Plaza. They had brought against him a charge of murder, as perfect a case of “frame-up” as I ever saw. I spent much time investigating the case, which failed for lack of evidence whenbrought before a jury. But the city editors and managing editors of the Los Angeles newspapers, to whom I took the evidence of this “frame-up,” were not moved to any fervors. I was able to get one or two small items published, but I was not able to find a spark of human feeling, nor yet an ideal of public welfare in the management of the journals upon which I called. But suppose that I had gone to them with the news that I was about to build a new million dollar hotel in Los Angeles; or that I had purchased the Catalina Islands, and was about to develop them for tourists; or that I was about to start an airplane service up the coast!
Quite recently a great rubber concern has started a six million dollar factory in Los Angeles; and such ecstasies as seize our papers! Columns and columns, day after day; pictures of the wondrous structure, and of the president of the company—I think I have had the features of this pudgy little person thrust upon me not less than a dozen times! And his ideas—not merely about the rubber business and the commercial prospects of Southern California, but about the League of Nations, and the “Plumb plan” and labor unions and strikes and Bolshevism!
On the other hand, there is a movement now under way to organize the actors in the motion-picture industry in Southern California; and how much space does this get from the Los Angeles newspapers? On August 18, 1919, there was held in the Hollywood Hotel a mass meeting of members of the theatrical profession, to inform them concerning the meaning of the actors’ strike in New York, and to solicit donations for the strikers. Not a line about this meeting in any Los Angeles paper! And not a line about the strike of the moving picture workers which came soon afterwards!
Now, as I finish this book, the office of the “Dugout,” a returned soldiers’ paper, is raided by the Federal authorities. The editor, Sydney R. Flowers, served three years as a volunteer in the Canadian army, was twice wounded, and once gassed. He joined a veterans’ organization in Los Angeles, but found it was being courted by the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association as a strike-breaking agency; so he rebelled, and started a rival organization, and now the “M. and M.” plotters have persuaded the government to raid his rooms and break up his propaganda. It happened that I myself was present, and saw the raid, and half a dozen witnesses cantestify to the condition in which the offices were left. At my instance the “Examiner” sent a photographer and took a flashlight of the scene; but then it suppressed the picture! As for the “Times,” it quite solemnly informs its readers that the war veterans wrecked their own offices, in order to have a ground of complaint against the government! It repeats this, in circumstantial detail, two days in succession!
This is a somber tale I am telling, so let us not miss the few laughs that belong. Some time ago I had a call from a young lady reporter for the “Los Angeles Record.” She was a very young lady indeed—just out of school, I should say—and she explained that Max Eastman had given an interview on the subject of “free love,” and would I please to give an interview on the subject of “free love.” In reply I explained to this young lady that as a result of previous painful experiences I had made an iron-clad rule on the subject of the sex-question. I would not trust any newspaper reporter, not even the most amiable, to interpret my views on that delicate subject.
The young lady argued and pleaded. She did her very charming best to get me to give her a hint of my opinion of Max Eastman’s opinion of “free love.” But I have become a wise bird—having had my wing-feathers shot out so many times; I gave no hint, either of my own opinions or of my opinions of Max Eastman’s opinions.
Finally the young lady said: “Do you ever write on the subject, Mr. Sinclair?”
I answered: “Sometimes I do. When I write, I choose my own words and say what I mean, and then I am willing to stand by it.”
“Well,” said the young lady, “will you write an article on ‘free love’ for the ‘Record’?”
“Certainly I will,” said I—“if the ‘Record’ will pay my price.”
“What is your price?”
“Ten cents a word.”
The young lady looked troubled. “I don’t know if the ‘Record’ could pay that,” said she, “but this is my position—I will explain frankly, and hope you won’t mind. I’ve just started to be a newspaper woman, and I’m very anxious to make good. I don’t have to earn my living, because my parents have money. What I want to do is to have a career.If I go back to the ‘Record’ and report that I failed to get an interview, I won’t keep this job. So won’t you please write an article for me, and let me pay for it at the rate of ten cents a word?”
You may share a smile over this queer situation. I pleaded embarrassment, I argued with the young lady that I couldn’t possibly take her money. But she argued back, very charmingly; she would be heart-broken if I did not consent. So at last I said: “All right, I will write you an article. How many words do you want?”
The young lady meditated; she figured for a while on the back of her note-book; and finally she said: “I think I’d like fifty words, please.”
Really, I explained, I couldn’t express my views on such a complicated subject in the limits of a night letter; so the young lady raised her bid to a hundred words. In the end we had to break off negotiations, and she went away disappointed. I was told afterwards by friends that she published an article in the “Record,” describing this interview, and having an amusing time with me; so presumably her job was saved. I didn’t see her article, for the “Record” is an evening paper, and publishes half a dozen editions, no two alike, and the only way you can find out what it says about you is to stand on the street-corner for six or eight hours, and catch each fleeting edition as it fleets.
I have come to the end of my own experiences. I read the manuscript and the proofs, over and over, as I have to do, and a guilty feeling haunts me. Will the radical movement consider that I have forced upon it a ventilation of my own egotisms, in the guise of a work on Journalism? I cannot be sure; but at least I can say this: Have patience, and read the second part of the book, in which you will find little about myself, and a great deal about other people, to whom you owe your trust and affection; also a mass of facts about your Journalism, without reference to anybody’s personality.