So here was a little glimpse behind the curtain of the newspaper world of Chicago! James Keeley was, and still is the _beau ideal_ of American newspaper men; I have never met him, but I have read articles about him, the kind of “write-ups” which the capitalist system gives to its heroes. He had begun life as a poor boy and risen from the ranks by sheer ability and force of character—you know the “dope.” Now he was one of the high gods of newspaperdom; and when it was a question of protecting the great predatory interest which subsidizes all the newspapers of Chicago and holds the government of the city in the hollow of its hand, this high god sent to Armour and Company and had a report prepared by their publicity-agent, and sent this report to a friend in New York as the result of a confidential investigation by a trusted reporter of the “Chicago Tribune” staff! And maybe you think this must be an unusual incident; you think that capitalist Journalism would not often dare to play a trick like that! I happen to be reading “Socialism versus the State,” by Emile Vandervelde, Belgian Minister of State, and come upon this paragraph: It will be remembered, for example, that the “London Times” published, a few years ago, a series of unsigned articles, emanating, it was said from an impartial observer, against the municipal lighting systems in England. These articles made the tour of Europe. They furnish, even today, arguments for the opponents of municipalization. Now, a short time after their publication, it was learned that the “impartial observer” was the general manager of one of the big electric light and power companies of London. Doubleday, Page and Company published “The Jungle,” and it became the best-selling book, not only in America, but also in Great Britain and its colonies, and was translated into seventeen languages. It became also the subject of a terrific political controversy. The packers, fighting for their profits, brought all their batteries to bear. To begin with, there appeared in the “Saturday Evening Post” a series of articles signed by J. Ogden Armour, but written, I was informed, by Forrest Crissey, one of the staff of the “Post.” The editor of this paper, George Horace Lorimer, was for nine years an employee of the Armours; he is author of “The Letters of a Self-Made Merchant to His Son,” a text-book of American business depravity. From first to last his paper was at the service of the packers, as it has always been at the service of every great financial interest.