The Real Mr. Hearst [excerpt]

HE had a terrible awakening in 1891 [sic] when President McKinley was assassinated. His newspaper rivals recalled the fact that the Evening Journal had once printed an editorial saying that assassination was sometimes a good thing, and that the Morning Journal had published this quatrain:

The bullet that pierced Goebel’s breast
Cannot be found in all the West.
Good reason—it is speeding here
To stretch McKinley on his bier.

     It did not matter that these and other things had been printed without Mr. Hearst’s knowledge and against his wish. It made no difference that he had stopped the presses when he read the assassination editorial. A cry of rage sounded across the continent and Mr. Hearst was burned and hung in effigy, while bonfires fed by his newspapers were lighted north, south, east and west. It is doubtful whether any American has ever faced such a wild storm of passion as that which burst over the head of the hapless young editor. He was everywhere denounced as a murderer, anarchist and scoundrel.
     It would be unfair to refer to this terrible incident without also recording the fact that, months before the President was slain, Mr. Hearst sent a representative to Mr. McKinley to express his regret that his newspapers, in the heat of active political warfare, had been led into excesses of personal attack, and offering to exclude from its pages anything that the President might find personally offensive, but also pledging him hearty support in all things as to which Mr. Hearst did not differ with him politically.
     The President seemed deeply touched by this wholly voluntary offer and sent a message of sincere thanks. The writer of this article was the bearer of the President’s message. These facts are given as an explanation of the actual terms upon which Mr. Hearst and Mr. McKinley were living when Czolgoz fired the fatal shot.