CHAPTER IV.

GOVERNMENT BY NEWSPAPER.

Twelve years ago I employed part of the leisure I enjoyed in the safe retreat of Holloway Gaol in writing an essay on “Government by Journalism.” In that essay, which was published after my release in the _Contemporary Review_, and subsequently republished under the title “A Journalist on Journalism,” I expounded a theory as to the natural and inevitable emergence of the journalist as the ultimate depository of power in modern democracy. One passage I may be permitted to quote, as it bears directly upon the subject of the present chapter:--

The future of journalism depends almost entirely upon the journalist, and at present the outlook is not very hopeful. The very conception of journalism as an instrument of government is foreign to the mind of most journalists. Yet, if they could but think of it, the editorial pen is a sceptre of power, compared with which the sceptre of many a monarch is but a gilded lath. In a democratic age, in the midst of a population which is able to read, no position is comparable for permanent influence and far-reaching power to that of an editor who understands his vocation. In him are vested almost all the attributes of real sovereignty. He has almost exclusive rights of initiative; he retains a permanent right of direction; and, above all, he better than any man is able to generate that steam, known as public opinion, which is the greatest force of politics.

To rule--the very idea begets derision from those whose one idea of their high office is to grind out so much copy, to be only paid for according to quantity, like sausages or rope-yarn. Bunyan’s man with the muck-rake has many a prototype on the press. To dress contemporary controversy day by day in the jacket of party, to serve up with fresh sauce of current events the hackneyed commonplaces of politics--that in their eyes is journalism; but to rule! Yet an editor is the uncrowned king of an educated democracy. The range of his power is limited only by the extent of his knowledge, the quality rather than the quantity of his circulation, and the faculty and force which he can bring to the work of government.

An extraordinary idea seems to prevail with the eunuchs of the craft that leadership, guidance, governance, are alien to the calling of a journalist. Those conceptions of what is a journalist’s duty, if indeed they recognise that imperious word as having any bearing upon their profession, is hid in mystery. If it may be inferred from their practice, their ideal is to grind out a column of more or less well-balanced sentences, capable of grammatical construction, conflicting with no social conventionality or party prejudice, which fills so much space in the paper, and then utterly, swiftly, and for ever vanishes from mortal mind. How can they help to make up other people’s minds when they have never made up their own?

Even as it now is, with all its disabilities and all its limitations, the press is almost the most effective instrument for discharging many of the functions of government now left us. It has been, as Mr. Gladstone remarked, and still is, the most potent engine for the reform of abuses that we possess, and it has succeeded to many of the functions formerly monopolised by the House of Commons. But all that it has been is but a shadow going before of the substance which it may yet possess, when all our people have learned to read, and the press is directed by men with the instinct and capacity of government.

Now it so happened by a curious coincidence that just about the time I was penning these sentences in happy Holloway, a youth fresh from Harvard, the heir to one of the greatest fortunes in the United States, was deciding to devote his life to the journalistic profession. Mr. W. R. Hearst was the son of Senator Hearst, one of the lucky handful of men who came out from the development of the silver mines of the Far West with many solid millions of sterling gold in his possession. As heir to the Hearst millions, nothing would have been more in accordance with the ways of the millionaire class than for the young graduate to have given himself up to a life of self-indulgent ease. Young Hearst, however, had no inclination for sloth. Journalism attracted him, and he set himself to learn the business of the craft. Money, of course, was available to secure him ample opportunity to indulge his whim, and before long he began to try his prentice hand as editor and proprietor of the _San Francisco Examiner_. He soon proved that he possessed the editorial instinct as well as the capitalist’s purse, and the _Examiner_ began to be heard of far beyond the Pacific Coast as one of the smartest specimens of American journalism.

But the Pacific Coast is a long way off. To reign in San Francisco is less than to serve in New York, and Mr. Hearst soon began to turn a longing eye to the Eastern capital. The same loadstone that drew Mr. Pulitzer from St. Louis to make the _New York World_ the latest and greatest of American newspapers, compelled Mr. Hearst to come to the same city to found a newspaper which would be even later and greater than the _World_. It was with Mr. Hearst as it was with Themistocles when the laurels of Miltiades would not allow him to sleep. The laurels of Mr. Pulitzer were equally productive of insomnia in the _Examiner_ office. At last, when Senator Hearst died, and the young editor of thirty found himself in undisputed control of a million or two--pounds, not dollars--with a reversionary right, on the death of his mother, to several millions more, he was in a position to realise his ambition. Crossing the continent, he purchased the _New York Morning Journal_ from Mr. Pulitzer’s brother Albert, and began the siege of New York. The _World_ was then in the height of its prosperity. In ten years it had built up a circulation without a rival in the Western hemisphere. The Paris _Petit Journal_ alone distanced the _World_ in Europe. The great gilded dome of the _World_ office, which every night, radiant with electric light, sits as a crown of flame upon the city’s brow, did not rise more conspicuously above the other buildings in its vicinity than the _World_ towered aloft above its contemporaries. When Mr. Hearst sat down in New York he had one ambition, and--so far as he allowed any one to see his secret thoughts--one ambition only. He would publish a newspaper which would beat the _World_.

He began operations by annexing the pick of the staff of the _World_. Journalists in the United States sit by no means so tightly in their chairs as they do in this country. The Americans are a restless race. Whether it is that the nomad Redskin left a migratory contagion in the air, or whether the force of gravitation has been suspended on their behalf, or whatever else the cause may be, the fact is indisputable. Whether in politics, in the press, or elsewhere, they shift about with a readiness that seems strangely unnatural to the more stolid Englishman, who is apt to root himself like his native oak. Hence it was possible for Mr. Hearst to begin his campaign in New York by taking away from Mr. Pulitzer several of the brightest and brainiest members of his staff. They left the _World_ to form the staff of the _Journal_, with regrets no doubt, but without hesitation. For the terms of Mr. Hearst were better than those of Mr. Pulitzer, and they went. Mr. Pulitzer, alarmed by the secession, induced some of them to return by the offer of still better terms than Mr. Hearst, but the young man with the inherited millions outbid the older journalist who had made his own pile, and the _Journal_ started with the cream of the _World’s_ staff. If there be something of Dugald Dalgetty about this sudden transfer of allegiance in English eyes, it was entirely in accordance with the habits and customs of American journalism. A change in proprietors or in editors will be followed by a filing out of all the staff, the members of which no more lament over their fate than gipsies deplore the fall of their tent-poles.

To the men recruited from the _Journal_, Mr. Hearst added some of the best of his Californian staff, and as he paid the highest salaries going, he had the pick of the pressmen of the continent. He picked as a rule wisely and well. But his first choice and the most valuable member of his staff was himself. No one did more to give the newspaper character and success than the young millionaire, who was to be seen in his shirt-sleeves through the hottest nights in the sultry summer toiling away at proofs and formes until the early hours when he saw his paper to press. Members of his staff who were worked like niggers could not complain when they saw their chief working harder than any of his salaried employees. “A millionaire,” they said, “in his shirt-sleeves! He could not work harder if he were working on space for his daily bread!”

After having formed his staff, Mr. Hearst launched his paper, publishing it at a cent. The _New York Herald_ is published at three cents. The _World_ was published at two cents. Mr. Hearst published morning after morning an eight and a twelve page paper at a price below the cost of production. Mr. Pulitzer, recognising that at last he had found a real rival, reduced the price of the _World_ to a cent. From that day to this the two rivals have wrestled together without ceasing. They both publish morning and afternoon and Sunday editions. They both are profusely illustrated. They both cater directly and avowedly for the million, and the million responds. The weaker of the old-fashioned papers went down beneath the feet of the contending giants as the forests went down under the trampling of St. Tammany and the Devil. But the circulation of the _Journal_ went up steadily, until in two years Mr. Hearst had a Sunday circulation of 400,000 at five cents, while the average daily sales of the morning and evening journals reached 350,000. The circulation of the _World_ was not seriously impaired. The _Journal_ grew not at the expense of its rival so much as at the expense of the other papers which were less up-to-date.

Of course this result was not achieved without prodigious expenditure. Never before were such salaries paid on any newspaper. The secrets of the counting-house are not revealed to the outside world, but Mr. Hearst is said to have half-a-dozen editors and artists, each of whom draws the salary of a Cabinet Minister. Money flowed like water. Nothing was too much to pay for a first-class, exclusive piece of intelligence. Journalists of the old school stood aghast at the _Journal’s_ prices. And, what made the expenditure appear still more outrageous, for a long time there were practically no receipts. Advertisers, even in the United States, are a conservative race. A newspaper appealed in vain for their support. They would come in, but only at low prices. Mr. Hearst said they might stay out; they must come in at his prices or not at all. They took him at his word and stayed out--for a time. But now they are coming in shoals, and the advertisement columns day by day attest the capitulation of the advertiser to the newspaper. The direct cash loss on the first year’s editing of the _Journal_ could hardly be less than £200,000, if, indeed, it did not largely exceed that sum.

People began to wonder what Mr. Hearst was after. He could not be after the dollars--he had more dollars than he could count. He was not known to have any distinctive political aspirations. He was spoken of sometimes as the Socialist millionaire, but he never professed any belief in Socialism as a dogma of his creed. Was it only to beat the _World_? Who could say. The _Journal_ plunged heavily and got hit badly by its advocacy of Bryanism and Free Silver, but Mr. Hearst was no fanatic of silver. He was not a fanatic at all. He was a man as modest in private life as his paper was blatant in print. His editorials were searched in vain to discover any consistent or inconsistent creed. The _Journal_ was like Broadway in print. Broadway at high noon, with cars swinging backwards and forwards along the tracks, and the myriad, multitudes streaming this way and that--life everywhere, but one common governing purpose or direction nowhere.

But after a time there was gradually evolved from this feverish chaos of sensationalism some trace of a great conception. Mr. Croker, who, although not glib of tongue, is shrewd of wit and keen of eye, discerned its drift, and set himself to ridicule and belittle what he called “government by newspaper.” Then the _Journal_ itself, taking heart of grace from a series of successes, boldly printed at the head of its editorial columns:--

THE “JOURNAL’S” MOTTO:

“WHILE OTHERS TALK, THE ‘JOURNAL’ ACTS.”

This appeared immediately after the announcement of the release of the fair heroine Evangelina Cisneros from her Cuban gaol by the enterprise of a _Journal_ reporter. It was followed by an editorial entitled “The Journalism that Does Things.” This article expresses so succinctly the aims and objects of a paper which has played so conspicuous a part in the recent history of New York that I have no hesitation in quoting it here:--

The instant recognition accorded throughout the world, outside of Weyler’s palace and offices of most New York newspapers, to the work of the heroes who, in the service of the _Journal_ and of humanity, rescued Evangelina Cisneros from the prison of the Recojidas is broader and deeper than a mere compliment to a single newspaper. It is epochal. It signifies that by a supreme achievement the journalism of action, which is called by its detractors the “new journalism,” and proudly accepts the title, has broken down the barriers of prejudice and vindicated its animating principle.

Action--that is the distinguishing mark of the new journalism. It represents the final stage in the evolution of the modern newspaper of a century ago--the “new journals” of their day--told the news, and some of them made great efforts to get it first. The new journal of to-day prints the news too, but it does more. It does not wait for things to turn up. It turns them up.

It has taken some time for the understanding and appreciation of these novel methods to become general, but from the very first the _Journal_ has found an immense constituency eager to welcome them. It has provided for this sympathetic body of readers a continuous succession of notable deeds. We may recall a few examples.

The _Journal_ has always been an energetic ally of the Cuban patriots. It has rendered them a variety of important services, of which the rescue of Miss Cisneros is merely the latest. Another of a similar, through less dramatic sort, was its action in forcing the Spanish authorities to issue passports to the widow and children of Dr. Ricardo Ruiz, the American dentist who was murdered by his gaolers in Havana.

When the _Casper Whitney_ put to sea with water oozing in through every joint, the _Journal_ secured an investigation which resulted in the removal of Captain Fairchild, of the inspection service.

The _Journal_ proved by experiments with chartered vessels off Sandy Hook that the ordinary flags of the international signal code could be easily read at night from a great distance under flashlight illumination. This discovery, whose value in saving life and property at sea is incalculable, it dedicated freely to the maritime world.

From the beginning the _Journal_ has taken a practical as well as a theoretical interest in the relief of suffering and the elevation of the classes that have lacked a fair chance in life. Last winter it undertook to mitigate the awful distress that prevailed so widely at that time by opening a depôt in Grand Street, at which hot food was distributed daily to those in need. Thousands of starving people were relieved by this enterprise. On another occasion, when a fire in East Thirty-fifth Street rendered many families homeless, the _Journal_ invited them all to a Christmas dinner, and then, with the co-operation of its readers, established them in newly-furnished homes. But the greatest work of the _Journal_ in the direction of the improvement of social conditions has been the establishment and maintenance of the _Journal_ Junior Republic, which has saved about two hundred boys from the slums, and turned them into good citizens, and which contains the promise of unlimited future development and expansion.

Last winter, when the aldermen had undertaken to grant a perpetual franchise for the use of the streets to a light, fuel and power company, the _Journal_ served injunctions upon the board and prevented the outrage. At the same time it fought at Albany for dollar gas with such success that even Mr. Platt’s Legislature was compelled to yield to public opinion to the extent of passing a bill providing for a general reduction. The practice of invoking the law against unfaithful public servants has been repeated recently with signal success in the case of Commissioner of Public Works Collis and his pet contractors, who have been compelled to raise the siege of Fifth Avenue.

When the East River murder seemed an insoluble mystery to the police, the _Journal_ organised a detective force of its own, and in two or three days identified the victim, Guldensuppe, and his assassins. And when the Long Island Railroad attempted to excuse its wholesale manslaughter at Valley Stream by alleging that an engine could be seen for a distance of one thousand five hundred feet, the _Journal_ took a counterpart of the wrecked tally-ho outfit to the scene, and proved by actual measurement that the driver could not have seen the approaching train until his leaders were on the track, with the engine eighty-four feet away.

These are a few of the public services by which the _Journal_ has illustrated its theory that a newspaper’s duty is not confined to exhortation, but that when things are going wrong it should itself set them right if possible. The brilliant exemplication of this theory in the rescue of Miss Cisneros has finally commended it to the approval of almost the entire reading world.

These things, all of them, or almost all, are good. Some of them are very good. But all of them together do not prove that in Mr. Hearst we have the man of whom Mr. Lowell spoke when he said:--

Methinks the editor who should understand his calling and be equal thereto, would truly deserve that title of ποιμὴν λαῶν, which Homer bestows upon princes, he would be the Moses of our nineteenth century ... the Captain of our Exodus into the Canaan of a truer social order.

Nevertheless, Mr. Hearst is far and away the most promising journalist whom I have yet come across. He has education, youth, energy, aptitude, wealth, and that instinctive journalistic sense which is akin to genius. If in addition to these great qualifications he were to realise the possibilities of his vocation, and to become inspired by a supreme enthusiasm--say to redeem New York, and make the second city in the world in size the first city of the world as a place of human habitation--there is no knowing what incalculable good might lie within his grasp. Certainly no man in all New York has such a chance of combining all the elements that make for righteousness and progress in the city as the young Californian millionaire-editor who founded the _Journal_.

There is, however, no greater delusion than to imagine that a newspaper in America has any influence merely because it is a newspaper. The habit of running newspapers as if they were mere commercial dividend-earning undertakings has so largely discounted the influence of the press as to lead many shrewd observers to declare that they would just as soon have the newspapers against them as in their favour. Carter Harrison had every newspaper in Chicago against him--but his own--and he was elected to the mayoralty by an overwhelming majority. Mr. Croker declared over and over again that if he had stood for the mayoralty of New York he would wish for nothing better than that every newspaper in the city should be against him, in which case he regarded his success as a certainty. Tammany at one time corrupted the newspapers. At another time it bullied them. Now it disregards them. “Mere newspaper talk”--nothing can be more contemptuous than that.

If New York is to be raised to the position of being the ideal city of the New World it will not have to be by mere newspaper talk, but by the man behind the newspaper who can make his newspaper the organising, vivifying, rallying centre for all the best forces and influences of the city. If Mr. Hearst has soul enough and heart enough he may do it. I do not know any one else who has got his chance.