It is such hidden forces as this which account for much of the snobbery in American newspapers; the fact that in every department and in every feature they favor the rich and powerful, and reveal themselves as priests of the cult of Mammon. I have watched the great metropolitan dailies, and those in many smaller cities and towns; I have yet to see an American newspaper which does not hold money for its god, and the local masters of money for demi-gods at the least. The interests of these Olympian beings, their sports, their social doings, their political opinions, their comings and goings, are assumed by the newspapers to be the object of the absorbed interest of every American who knows how to read. On every page and in every column of every page the American newspaper preaches the lesson: “Get money, and all things else shall be added unto you—especially newspaper attention.” When Mr. John P. Gavit, managing editor of the “New York Evening Post,” wrote to Mr. Melville E. Stone, general manager of the Associated Press, that I had a reputation “as an insatiable hunter of personal publicity,” what Mr. Gavit meant was that I was accustomed to demand and obtain more space in newspapers than the amount of my worldly possessions entitled me to. Some years ago my wife went for a visit to her home in the far South, after the unusual adventure of marrying a Socialist; she met one of her girlhood friends, who exclaimed: “My, but your husband must be a rich man!” “My husband is a poor man,” said M. C. S. Whereat the girl-friend laughed at her. “I know better,” said she. “But it’s true,” said M. C. S. “He has no money at all; he never had any.” “Well,” said the other, skeptically, “then what are the papers all the time talking about him for?” A large part of what is called “conservatism” in our Journalism is this instinctive reverence for wealth, as deeply rooted in every American as respect for a duke in an English butler. So the average American newspaper editor is a horse that stands without hitching, and travels without a whip. But emergencies arise, a fork in the road, a sudden turn, a race with another vehicle; and then a driver is needed—and perhaps also a whip! I showed you Mr. Ochs pulling the “Metropolis” story off the front page of the “New York Times” at one o’clock in the morning. Every Hearst editor has stories to tell of one-o’clock-in-the-morning visits from the owner, resulting in the whole policy of the paper being shifted. And where the owner is owned, maybe somebody will call _him_ up and lay down the law; maybe an agent will be set to keep watch over his doings, and to become the real master of his paper. I could name more than one famous editor and publisher who has been thus turned out of his job, and remains nothing but a name.