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
And meantime, in Denver, the newspapers were pouring out an incessant
stream of invective upon Lindsey. The Scandal-Bureau revived the old
yarn, that he was “the insane son of insane parents.” (I knew his
mother, an excellent old lady, as sane as I am.) On every stage of this
journey Lindsey was accompanied by his young wife, to whom he had been
married only a few months; nevertheless, it was plainly stated in the
Colorado papers, and generally believed by Denver “society,” that the
three strikers’ wives constituted part of a harem. If only you could
have seen them—three pathetic, bedraggled poor women, two of them in
deep mourning! And when Mrs. Lindsey, owing to the strain of the
journey, suffered a miscarriage, and had to be carried from the train to
a hospital in Chicago, several Colorado newspapers reported that this
was owing to mistreatment by her husband! At a meeting of the Denver
Real Estate Exchange, it was proposed to appoint a committee to “spit on
Lindsey’s shoes” when he returned; and this was the kind of news that
was thought worth forwarding out of Denver!
I write to Judge Lindsey, so that you may have these incredible
incidents upon his authority, not upon mine. He confirms every statement
I have made. He tells of a woman detective, employed by the
Scandal-Bureau—
The Lewis woman circulated the story that my wife came out of a house
of prostitution, and that her mother was a “madame”; and the
corporations paid the woman for it. There is no doubt about this, and
it can be proved.
Judge Lindsey goes on to narrate the extraordinary circumstances under
which these proofs became available. One of the members of the State
legislature, a man named Howland, was caught receiving a bribe in the
legislature. He had introduced a “strike bill” against the Tobacco
Trust, and a messenger-boy had handed him an envelope of money, said to
be from an agent of the Tobacco Trust. In order to save this man
Howland, the head of the Scandal-Bureau, Dr. Mary Elizabeth Bates, came
forward and testified before the legislative committee that she had sent
this money to Howland in order to pay detectives to “get Lindsey.” Says
Lindsey in his letter to me:
Mind you, _she testified_ to her part in the infamy, and was backed up
by some of our rich citizens, feeling that she was quite safe from
prosecution—as she was. But Howland was found guilty of perjury in
this case, having sworn that the money came for an entirely different
purpose. Because of the general belief of the legislators that the
whole thing was part of a frame-up against me, and the fear that it
would lead to the truth being told about the fight against me, they
came to a compromise in the case against Howland, which was merely to
expel him from the legislature for perjury. He never was tried for
perjury or conspiracy to ruin me and my court work, as was undoubtedly
his plan.
And how stands the matter today? Let Lindsey tell it in his own words:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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