Hearst and His Judges

WILLIAM R. HEARST has sought to turn aside something at least of the public indignation against him by the plea that those who charge him with responsibility in the crime of Czolgosz are business rivals who are trying to benefit themselves by injuring him. In his organ, the Examiner of this city, he directed that plea on Sunday in a special measure against The Call, and will doubtless repeat it in the hope that by iteration and reiteration a considerable number of the people may be induced to believe it. It is therefore incumbent upon The Call to take note of it.
     Hearst could hardly have conceived a more false but at the same time a more cunning plea. The public cares little or nothing about controversies between rival newspapers, and Hearst is aware that if he can so shift this issue as to make it appear nothing more than a question between The Call and the Examiner, he will be able to sneak out of the storm and escape the punishment which public condemnation has prepared for him.
     Let it then be noted that the charge of Hearst’s responsibility for anarchy and for crime has not been made solely by The Call. On the contrary, it was the spontaneous outburst of public sentiment in all parts of the country. The intelligence of the American people had noted the tendency of the teachings of the Hearst journals and had long since condemned them. In that condemnation, however, there was a contemptuous disbelief that the vicious teachings by pen and picture could result in an actual attempt upon the life of the President who was daily vilified and maligned. The crime of Czolgosz startled the public by a disclosure that the Hearst papers were not so harmless as public contempt had supposed them, and at once there arose the cry of the public—“Down with the anarchists, and down with the yellow journals.”
     That cry came from all classes of citizens. In many parts of the country Hearst was hanged in effigy as an evidence of the popular rage against him, and while the masses were expressing themselves in that or other equally forcible ways eminent men were pronouncing the condemnation of Hearst in the most emphatic manner and under the most solemn and impressive circumstances.
     Among those whose charges Hearst has to answer, and whom he cannot set aside by the shuffling lie that they are business rivals, are: Grover Cleveland, Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop Riordan, Bishop Cranston of the Methodist Episcopal Church, President Wheeler of the University of California, President Jordan of Stanford, Vice President Cooper of Rutgers, Abram Hewitt of New York, and almost every orator who spoke at memorial services held at every important city in the Union on the day of the funeral of the President. To these are to be added the host of other men who acted as the representatives of public institutions and organized bodies, such as the Chamber of Commerce in this city and the State Board of Horticulture.
     These men were not vague in their condemnation. Some of them, indeed, did not name Hearst nor the yellow journals which he supports out of his wealth, but they made their meaning so clear and plain that no one could mistake it. Others frankly spoke the loathed names and specified that they meant William R. Hearst and his three papers, the New York Journal, the Chicago American and the San Francisco Examiner.
     Does Hearst deem it possible that he can induce the American people, or even a respectable minority of them, to believe that such men are his business rivals, or in any way jealous of his “superiority”?
     He has threatened to retaliate upon those who condemn him. How will he retaliate? Will he burn in effigy all who have burned him in effigy? Will he slander every man in America who has refused to take one of his papers? Will he hold up the eminent men who have spoken against him and daily vilify them for the purpose of rousing against them some wretch of the Czolgosz type?
     Should Hearst, learning discretion from cowardice, hold fast to his scheme of misrepresenting the issue to the public and insist that after all it is but a newspaper fight, he will even then have his hands full when he undertakes the task of retaliation. It is not in California only that he has been exposed and the meaning of his vicious teachings made clear by the press. He and his journals have been condemned in the East almost as universally as in California. In the whole of this State he has had but one or two apologists, and in proportion to the number of papers he is about as badly off in the East.
     It would require more space than we can afford to publish the list of all Eastern newspapers that have expressed the popular condemnation of the yellow journals. Taking only the more important papers and those only that have emphasized the criminal character of the Hearst publications by repeatedly directing popular attention to it, we have this long array:

Brooklyn Eagle. Newark Evening News. Philadelphia Inquirer. Springfield (Mass.) Union. Chicago Evening Journal. New York Journal of Commerce. Elizabeth Daily Journal. Fitchburg (Mass.) Sentinel. Detroit Free Press. Ithaca Journal. Philadelphia Times. Philadelphia Press. Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin. Albany Evening Journal. Richmond Dispatch. Wilmington Morning News. Marquette (Mich.) Mining Journal. The New Yorker. Cincinnati Commercial Tribune. New York Sun. Washington Times. Burlington Hawkeye. New Orleans Times-Democrat. Baltimore Herald. Louisville Commercial. Wheeling (W. Va.) Intelligencer. New Haven Leader. Bridgeport Standard. Topeka Daily Capital. Warwick (N. Y.) Advertiser. Chicago Chronicle. Chatham (N. Y.) Republican. Fargo (N. D.) Morning Call and Daily Argus Kansas City Journal. Augusta (Me.) Daily Kennebec Journal. Elmira (N. Y.) Daily Advertiser. Watertown Daily Times. Indianapolis News. Paterson Guardian. Paterson Call. New York Press. Colorado Springs Mail. Chicago Tribune.

Baltimore World.    Hudson (N. Y.) Republican.    Troy Press.    Seattle Post-Intelligencer.    Gloversville (N. Y.) Leader-Intelligencer.    Concord (N. H.) Independent Statesman.    Newburg (N. Y.) Daily News.    St. Louis Globe-Democrat.    Milwaukee Sentinel.    Detroit Tribune.    Louisville Courier-Journal.    Minneapolis Journal.    Troy Record.    Troy Times.    Passaic Daily News.    New York Commercial Advertiser.    Schenectady Union.    Boston Transcript.    Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.    New Brunswick Press.    Trenton Times.    Jersey City News.    Baltimore American.    Rochester Post-Express.    Providence Telegram.    Syracuse Journal.    Portland (Me.) Daily News.    Richmond County Advance.    Worcester Spy.    Buffalo Commercial.    Dayton (Ohio) Daily Journal.    Providence Journal.    Memphis Commercial Appeal.    Western Christian Advocate.    Jewish Messenger.    New Haven Register.    Brooklyn Times.    Philadelphia Item.    Montreal Daily Star.    Utica Daily Press.    The Music Trades. (New York.)    Cleveland Leader.    Rutland News.

     From that list, including as it does almost every eminent legitimate journal in the East, it will be seen that in trying to sneak out of public wrath by setting up a newspaper fight the yellow anarchist has hardly benefited himself. There is no other man in America, or probably in the world, who is regarded by the members of his own profession with so much of abhorrence as is this man who has sought to degrade American journalism to the slums and bring the profession of Franklin, Greeley, Bryant, Prentice and Dana down to the level of Czolgosz.