The Brass Check: A Study of American JournalismSinclair, Upton
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The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism
Sinclair, Upton
Associated Press; Journalism -- United States; Press -- United States
I have, of course no right to insist that you should answer any of
these questions. I will merely say that by failing to answer them, and
answer them promptly and explicitly, you will leave your name open to
exceedingly grave suspicions.
This letter remained unanswered; yet such utter lack of concern about
his good name has not injured the pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn,
with the great organs of capitalist opinion! Only recently “McClure’s
Magazine” has selected him for its prize anti-Bolshevik liar. Please
make a mental note of him, for reference when we come to the
anti-Bolshevik liars and their lies.
It was still our hope that President Wilson could be persuaded to
interfere in the strike and force the Rockefellers to some compromise.
It being the way of public officials to move only in response to public
clamor, we were driven to keep on butting our heads against the concrete
wall. Our “mourning picket” demonstration had gathered about us a group
of young radicals, who could not endure to see the effort die down and
the strangling of the strike completed. Every day one would come to us
with some new idea. One group wished to go up to Rockefeller’s home on
Madison Avenue, and walk up and down in front of it. We objected to
this, because we were not attacking Mr. Rockefeller personally, we were
attacking his business policy, and his office seemed the proper place.
Nevertheless, one boy ventured up on Madison Avenue, and was promptly
arrested and sent to jail for sixty days.
There was another group which wished to visit Tarrytown, where young
Rockefeller had retired to the seclusion of his country home, with a
high iron fence all around it, and iron gates, and a score or two of
armed guards patrolling day and night. This group tried to hold a street
meeting in the village of Tarrytown, and were arrested. So I was driven
into a campaign on behalf of free speech. I have told in Chapter XII of
my experience with the “Tarrytown News”; I have now to tell of my
experience with the “New York Herald.” It is one of the few of my
newspaper adventures from the contemplation of which I derive
satisfaction.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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