KEPT PRESS ASSAULTS PEOPLE'S WILL
Ekern, Herman L.
Kept Press Assaults People's Will States That Shake Off Boss And Political Machines, Are Scorned By Newspapers, Dominated By Financial Plutocrats By HERMAN L, EKERN (Attorney General of...
...The editorial presents a studied affront to the people of these great forward looking commonwealths who trace their ancestry to Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland and Poland...
...Thus it is that the farm k the source'of our safest, soundest, clearest thinking citizenship, than which there can be no stronger foundation for an enduring statehood...
...They als« have a large population descended from Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Irish, Polish and other European ancestry...
...It is this citizenship that has builded here a commonwealth that for a quarter of a century has been free from the taint of corruption and has made the highest ideals an integral part pf the public service...
...Wisconsin was again the pioneer .in a practicable and successful income tax under which each pays according to ability...
...And here in the Old Northwest, from the beginning of our state life, have gathered in Wisconsin the -sturdiest types of progressive emigrants from Europe, seeking free government and happy homes...
...Its news-gathering agencies are perhaps second only to one other newspaper and yet its influence in public affairs where it is known is wholly negligible...
...They have American citizenship, and some are of American birth but they are merely living in America...
...Wisconsin early applied in practice the principle that the.rates and services of railroads and piablic utilities are subject to regulation to place the small shipper and the small business man on an equality in this respect with his large competitors...
...These great social accomplishments were made possible because of the responsive cords touched in the hearts of the liberty-loving people of Wisconsin, who •with their descendants came, so largely from Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland Poland and other European countries...
...THIS sturdy citizenship to which Senator La Folleite refers, has blazed the way to a greater democracy...
...The core of this alienism in Wisconsin is German, and it is from the Germany of Marx...
...Combined with the pioneer stock from New England, we have produced upon the farms of Wisconsin a hardy, courageous, aggressive race who are still pioneers in democracy and human progress...
...Did not the United States Senate, in a resolution adopted by that body, openly assort that Newberry was elected to the United States Senate by practices that were "dangerous to the perpetuity of a free government...
...The Tribune claims to be "the world's greatest newspaper...
...His environment, his remoteness from the congested centers where the struggles of our tense life are always fierce, afford him exceptional reflection upon all that concerns government and Society...
...Was it not the Tribune that only last spring brought out a candidate for Mayor of Chicago whose only avowed asset was that he had a German name and a racial appeal could thereby be made to the German voters of Chicago...
...Because the farmers and others who are not of the exploiters will not supinely submit, they must be made the target of this scurrilous abuse...
...The Tribune in its editorial says: "Wisconsin has a large ^population of conscious aliens...
...Wisconsin was the first state to shake off the boss and the corrupt political machine...
...Wisconsin was the first state to declare and establish a public policy that human life And well being shall not be secondary to property and profit...
...What right can it claim to criticise the people of other states in view of its daily confessions in news and editorial columns of unpunished murder, graf^ and, civie dishonesty at home...
...It is one of the great misfortunes of the time that the splendid institution built by Joseph Medill should have failed the people so utterly when most needed...
...It is because Wisconsin and Minnesota* have become imbued with those principles of democracy that seek to advance the welfare of the masses as against the interests of the few that these states have incurred the hatred and the enmity of the kept press of which the Trifi-une is a conspicuous example...
...An editorial which has just appeared in the Chicago Tribune is once more illustrative of the manner in which newspapers line up on the side of the exploiting interests as against the side of the people...
...The insistent determination of the people of Minnesota and Wisconsin to preserve democracy and to restore government to the people has been the cause of many venomous editorials in the Chicago Tribune...
...Thirty rears ago, Wisconsin established and enforced the principle, since scrupulously maintained, that the interest on public funds belongs to the public...
...The people of two great states, Minnesota and Wisconsin, are now being subjected to the assavits of the kept press because these people have preferred to enlist under the banner of forward looking principles rather than to bow supinely to the profiteers, the tariff barons and the financial plutocrats...
...It is a state in which the real spirit of the founders of this republic has...
...for the government under the stress of war and has been copied in nearly half of the states...
...It...
...Commercialism, typified by big advertising contracts, financial favors and smothered competition, has served to destroy a free i.nd independent press...
...Twenty years ago it adopted the primary for the nomination of all political candidates for public office and thus placed political sovereignty in the hands of the voters rather than with those who exploit the people...
...Murder, robbery, grafting and other crimes meet with certain and prompt punishment...
...Within its borders the meanest citizen i3 protected in his rights and every official and citizen regardless of position, wealth or influence, obeys and respects the majesty of the law...
...It has always maintained public order...
...WISCONSIN and Minnesota have a large population of German descent...
...It has developed a state with a public consciousness which demands that the welfare of the many shall be preferred to the interests of the few...
...The whole history of the Chicago Tribune, in recent years, has shown an arrogant and brazen contempt for the law where such laws interfered with the profits and the privileges of those for whom the Tribune speaks...
...That the judgment of the common people of Wisconsin on the primary was sound is attested by its general adoption and the uniform relegation of those who oppose it to political oblivion...
...Great newspapers, prostituted by the power and the influence that organized wealth is abla to wield, arc again rendering service to their Masters...
...Is the Tribune in a position to make such charges against Wisconsin...
...I"1 HIS is but a part of the illustrious story • of the struggle for democracy in Wisconsin in the past twenty years...
...Those who know, found its opposition an asset...
...The contribution that has been made by these peoples to the progress of these two great states was eloquently described in an article written by Senator Robert M. La Follette m September, 1920: "Nearness to Motn\r Earth, nearness to Nature's God, the keener human sympathy, that is the spontaneous outgrowth of the community spirit of the farm neighborhood, will ever be stamped upon the life and character of coon-try homes...
...It has since led in providing compensation for industrial diseases as in the earlier days it forced the lumber barons and manufacturers to make the lumber camps and factories sanitary and wholesome, eliminating smallpox, typhoid and other prevalent diseases...
...The pre-eminent place which this State has achieved in every branch of agriculture, the admitted leadership which she won before all the world in progressive democracy, could never have been attained except for the industry, intelligence and lofty political ideals of the lib-arty-loving farmers of Wisconsin...
...The Tribune seeks to convey the idea that "alienism" is a basic consideration in Wisconsin politics and that Americanism is being submerged in this state...
...Gone are the days when the aditorial independence of Joseph Medill dominated the Chicago Tribune...
...Wisconsin led the states of the ¦ Union in saying that the health of the people shall not be endangered to produce profits for the makers of impure foods...
...attained its highest fulfillment and in which the ideal of Americanism, in its best sense, has been achieved...
...When the Mack figure of commercialism stalked into the editorial sanctums of the modem newspapers it left no place for , the militant and high minded editors of other days,—such as Medill of the Tribune, RuMee of the Milwaukee Sentinel, Dana of the Near York Sun, Greeley of the New York Tribune, and many others of the early days when the people believed what they read in their newspapers and were justified in their faith...
...y in safeguarding life and limb on the railroads and in industry and again in substituting for the personal injury law suit ^a certain roUef through a liberal wjrkmen's compensation...
...Kept Press Assaults People's Will States That Shake Off Boss And Political Machines, Are Scorned By Newspapers, Dominated By Financial Plutocrats By HERMAN L, EKERN (Attorney General of Wisconsin) THE RIGHT of the people to exercise their privilege of sending men to the halls of legislation -who will vote for the public welfare as against privilege has again brought the bitter attack of the interests service press of the country...
...This since became the mode...
...Nothing but the infamous policy advocated by the Chicago Tribune and carried out first by one party and then by another, has been the cause of the prostration of tho greatest industry of Wisconsin and Minnesota —agriculture...
...During the long winter months) of Wisconsin, the farmer finds more time for reading and thinking upon social and political problems than any other large class of our population...
...Its attitude is not new and is typical of the position taken by the press in general in every contest between the people aad privilege...
...In an editorial of July 18, the Tribune seeks to conceal its disappointment over the election «f Magnus Johnson in gratuitous insults to the citizens of Minnesota and Wisconsin...
...Can a newspaper that condoned New-berryism make claim to being a real defender of Americanism in this country...
...Still earlier, Wisconsin inaugurated the movement under which the '. railroads, public utilities and other big interests have been compelled to pay their share of the taxes the same as the farmer and home owner...
...Wisconsin at the same time led all the states in applying the principle of civil service in basing appointments to all public positions on merit and fitness alone...
Vol. 15 • July 1923 • No. 7
