EDITORIALS
Newspapers and the People HOW about our newspapers? Are they helping or hindering the movement for a people's government? Do they cater to the money power? Or do they reflect truthfully the...
...Is man kinder to his brother man than woman is to her sister woman...
...What Mr...
...Published by Doubieday...
...Here is a day-by-day record of its unfolding: April 22: Attorney Brandeis asked E. G. Finney, Assistant Secretary of the Interior, the following question: "Is it not a fact that this statement of the Attorney General which purports to have been made September 11, 1909, bearing date of September 11, 1909, was as a matter of fact not dated for more than two months after that time...
...The path of progress is easier for the boy who goes to work in a neighbor's barn than it is for the girl who goes to work in a neighbor's kitchen...
...In Russia the autocratic government officials decide what may be printed in the press...
...Without going into that as a general proposition, we wish to record the fact that in one instance at least it did emerge from the obscurity which had been painstakingly wrapped around it...
...The operation of this plan will be followed with widespread interest...
...Russell speaks from inside knowledge...
...Every season brings its reports of a shortage of "hands" to harvest the crops...
...Wickersham accompanied this document with the explanation that "it had been overlooked...
...May 12: Oscar Lawler, assistant to the Attorney General for the Interior Department, who also was concerned in the preparation of the President's letter of September 13, 1909, stated that he had kept no copy of his memorandum and that he had prepared a resume at the request of the President and delivered it to the Attorney General...
...We may never arrive, but whatever tile end, the aim is worth the agony...
...He is a close observer, a careful investigator, and a writer of rare ability...
...A boy or man can do almost any kind of honest labor for wages without losing caste...
...The Beast" JUDGE BEN B. LINDSEY'S story, "The Beast," which was published serially in Everybody's, is now out in book form...
...Or do they reflect truthfully the happenings of the day...
...But with the return of good times the problem has grown more rather than less serious...
...It is the censorship of Business...
...Even greater efforts are being put forth to find a way of keeping the boys on the farm...
...TJBallinger's Nemesis appeals to be still cn the job...
...And he has hit upon a novel solution...
...The "Children's Judge" tells of his struggles with the Organized Vice-Organized Business-Organized Politics combination...
...May 14: Attorney General Wickersham, in an interview, declared that it was quite obvious that Lawler did not prepare the letter signed by Mr...
...So would we...
...But nowhere in this narrative is there a note of pessimism or of bitterness...
...Or does the right of suffrage make the difference...
...Quite the contrary...
...fThe "No vote, No tax" movement among advocates of woman suffrage in Chicago has inspired considerable editorial comment in the Middle West...
...To Commissioner Beck's letter requesting cooperation in this plan, the county clerks responded most encouragingly...
...This particular bit of truth had to do with the preparation of the President's letter of September 13, 1909, exonerating Ballinger and dismissing Glavis...
...Let us hope...
...May 14: Frederick M. Kerby, a stenographer in the office of Secretary Ballinger issues a signed statement embracing the following charges: That the original of President Taft's letter of September 13 was written in the Interior Department...
...It seems," he continues, "that perhaps the strongest of all arguments for woman suffrage may be found in the case of the working woman...
...The Beast" is a fascinating story...
...Lincoln Steffeks said: "On my knees, if I could, I would beg the people of this country to read Lindsey's story...
...Let us struggle...
...Finney replied: "I do not know when it was written, Mr...
...That Oscar Lawler, aided by other officials, prepared this tetter...
...Tainted news," "subsidized press," "corporation organs," "inspired editorials," have become a part of current vernacular...
...Throughout it all there runs warm human sympathy, and hope, and faith in democracy...
...Later, a complete list of the clerks who will take hold of the work will be published, so that farmers and others desiring help, and men and women desiring employment, will know where to go to get together...
...Russell's articles...
...He jested, but he was not a clown...
...His humor was funny, but if the fun of the comedian was in it so also was the humor of a sympathetic and earnest social philosopher...
...Brandeis...
...Thus is public opinion perverted at its source...
...But not often does it burst forth so dramatically, or illumine with so clear a light the cloak of concealment that had been thrown over it...
...The demand for farm labor is increasing, while the supply is apparently diminishing...
...They are hedged in and restricted, in the handling of both news matter and editorials by what is known as the paper's "policy...
...Price 51.50, postage 12 cents...
...That is why leaders of public thought are beginning to direct their attention more persistently toward this matter of a free press...
...This request the committee denied by a vote of 7 to 5. Chairman Nelson suggested that it would "be "violating confidences between the President and the Attorney General...
...Committee does so...
...Think over what he says...
...Democrat says the "No vote, No tax" cry "is catchy, rather than sound...
...Public opinion is the life force of democracy...
...legally she may not cast a vote for justice of the peace...
...He showed how the commercialization of the daily newspaper has transferred the control of the paper's policy from the editorial rooms to the business office...
...He began his journalistic career as a newspaper man...
...The editor of the Mineral Point (Wis...
...The men in this profession as a rule possess both qualities to a striking degree...
...This problem has been taken up by Commissioner J. D. Beck, of the Wisconsin Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics...
...It is a notable contribution to present-day literature...
...May 16: Secretary Ballinger dismissed Kerby "for the good of the service...
...It is net that the reporters and editors of the daily press are wanting in intelligence or integrity...
...Committee again refused the request...
...Lawler prepared," said he, "was what might be termed a suggested form of letter which the President could adopt if he saw fit—a practice of everyday occurrence in the executive departments of the government...
...Hon...
...In this country we have a censorship quite as effective, though perhaps not so sweeping...
...And he comes to the conclusion that— "When all is said, the daily press has been a staggering blow to democracy...
...If it proves successful even in a moderate way, it will undoubtedly stimulate similar mrvernents in other states...
...The trouble is that they are not free agents...
...For using certain paragraphs and sentences from the Lawler letter in the final draft of the letter which he signed...
...Is there really a distinction, or is this only one of the strange inconsistencies of "existing institutions...
...Truth Will Out THERE is a saying that truth will out...
...May 15: President Taft sent a letter to Chairman nelson of the investigating committee in which he assumes full responsibility: For authorizing Lawler to write, as if he were President, a letter exonerating Ballinger...
...That the letter actually sent by the President differed only slightly from the Lawler letter and followed it exactly in thought and sequence of statement...
...Upon their answer depends in large measure the outlook for a government by People instead of government by Property in this country...
...May 14: President Taft stated for publication that "there is absolutely no foundation" for Kerby's statement that the President's letter "was substantially prepared for the President's signature by Assistant Attorney General Lawler...
...They are concerned with the forming of public opinion, and hence with democracy...
...Yes, sometimes truth will out...
...This was the touch that has raised Mark Twain's writings far above the joke books, and kept his fame fresh through several generations of readers.—The Public...
...Read Mr...
...During the two years beginning at the time of the bank panic in the fall of 1907, this department placed 2,750 men, most of them from cities, on farms...
...Page & Co...
...and has been an editorial writer for New York, Chicago and San Francisco papers...
...And this distrust is well-founded...
...ns of the paper...
...Says Mr...
...If it can be shown that the cause for this difference lies in the ballot, then woman ought to cast the ballot...
...That the rough drafts were burned in a grate when the completed letter was ready for the President...
...Finding Men for the Farm WHERE to get hired men for the farm is becoming an increasingly serious problem...
...April 29: Committee considered in executive session the request of Attorney Brandeis that the original draft of this opinion by Attorney General Wickers ham be called for, particularly messages from the Interior Department, a list of all persons who assisted in the preparation of the report, and a statement as to what part each took...
...That Secretary Ballinger was consulted by Lawler when drafting the letter...
...Legally women may govern a state...
...Heart-breaking struggles they were, too...
...Inconsistency ANTI-WOMAN suffragists found a poser the other day in the decision of the Supreme Court of Nebraska...
...But the right to vote should be accorded to her because of her womanhood, and not because of the payment of taxes...
...You will then understand what it was that moved Professor Ross to exclaim: "When all is said, the daily press has been a staggering blow to Democracy...
...And he did so with a. master's pen...
...This decision (masculine gender) established the right of a woman to hold any office within the gift of the voters of that state in spite of the fact that she is denied the ballot...
...Professor Edward A. Ross, the noted sociologist, in a recent number of The Atlantic Monthly, discussed "The Suppression of Important News...
...But this is not true to the same extent in a case of a girl or woman...
...For the antedating by Attorney General Wickersham of the opinion on the Glavis charges which he wrote for the President...
...Beck : "For the last three years the Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics has been endeavoring to solve in part the problem of farm-help, and farm-renting in this state...
...May 14: Attorney General Wickersham sent to investigating committee the draft prepared by Lawler which Attorney Brandeis repeatedly requested the committee to call for...
...Francis E. Leupp, writing in the same magazine on "The Waning Power of the Press," suggests that— "With the capitalists' plans to promote, and powerful advertisers to conciliate by emphasizing this subject or discreetly ignoring that, is not the wonder rather that the moral quality of our press has not fallen below its present standard...
...May 12: Secretary Ballinger read to the committee a letter addressed by Attorney General Wickersham to a House committee, in which he admits that he antedated the opinion on the Glavis charges which he prepared for the President...
...April 30: Attorney Brandeis again urged the committee to send for the data bearing upon the Wickersham opinion...
...Taft...
...It is more than an exposure of political corruption...
...Mark Twain was witty, but he was more than a wit...
...The Beast," by Ben B. Lindsey and Harvey J. O'Hlgglns...
...That Kerby assisted as a stenographer in the preparation of this letter...
...Harvey J. O'HlG-oims, the author, took the autobiography as dictated roughly hy Judge Lindsey and worked it into literary form...
...it is a stirring chapter in the true history of the United States...
...What this "policy" is to be, is determined by the business connect...
...Beginning with this issue, La Follette's will publish a series of articles by Charles Edward Kussell on the nature and significance of this control of the daily press...
...New York...
...The scene is laid in Colorado, and particularly in Denver, but the conditions so faithfully portrayed are to be found in every other state...
...This alone would indicate a popular distrust of newspapers—a general feeling that they are not purveyors of uncolored news and disinterested opinions...
...Tamper with the one and you injure the other...
...Efforts have been made to divert the immigrant from the factory to the field...
...But nothing has yet been found to stem the tide of labor flowing from the country to the city...
...May 12: Attorney Brandeis again requests the committee to call upon Wickersham for this memorandum...
...It is, briefly, the establishment of a farm-labor employment agency in every county clerk's office in the state...
...Momentous questions, these...
...We are struggling toward better things, a happier country, a more perfect civilization," says Judge Lindsey...
Vol. 2 • May 1910 • No. 20
