The Brass Check: A Study of American JournalismSinclair, Upton
General
The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism
Sinclair, Upton
Associated Press; Journalism -- United States; Press -- United States
I went yesterday afternoon to see your Governor. I wish to be very
careful what I say of him. He is apparently a kindly man; in
intellectual caliber fitted for the duties of a Sunday-School
superintendent in a small village. He is one of the most pitiful
figures it has ever been my fate to encounter. He pleaded with me that
he was a ranchman, a workingman, that he was ignorant about such
matters as mines. When I pointed out to him that, according to
government figures, there were twelve times as many miners killed and
injured by accidents in the southern Colorado fields as elsewhere, his
only answer was that he had heard some vague statement to the effect
that conditions were different in other places. He pleaded tearfully
that he had brought upon himself the hatred of everyone, he admitted
that he was utterly bewildered, and had no idea what to do in this
crisis. His every word made evident his utter ignorance of the
economic forces which have produced this frightful situation. He cried
out for some solution; yet, every time that I sought to suggest a
solution, and to pin him down to a “yes” or a “no” upon a certain
course of action, he lost control of himself and cried out that I was
trying to make him “express an opinion.” He, the Governor of the
State, had no business to have opinions about such a dispute!
It is no accident, of course, that a man of this type comes to be
governor of a State like Colorado. The corporations deliberately select
such men because they wish to be let alone, and they prefer men who are
too weak to interfere with them, even if they wish to interfere. So now
at eleven o’clock on Saturday morning this poor pitiful Governor sends
for his advisors—the leaders of the hand-picked machine majority in the
State legislature. What is to be done? If the President’s telegram is
sent to the legislature, it may refuse to adjourn, and insist upon
considering the President’s demand. Therefore, at all hazards, the
telegram must be suppressed. Also, it must be sent to the coal-operators
in the city, in order that they may consult and tell the Governor what
reply to make to the President. All the newspaper men in Denver knew the
names of the two men who took the message about to the operators. It was
considered by the operators for three or four hours, and a reply drafted
and sent; and meantime desperate efforts were made by the machine
leaders to obtain the adjournment of the legislature. The reply drafted
by the operators and sent by the Governor was as follows:
Hon. Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, Washington:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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