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
Traction is a “sacred cow.” The truth about Cleveland’s fight for the
three-cent fare has been widely suppressed. For instance, while Mayor
Johnson was superintending the removal of the tracks of a defunct
street railway, he was served with a court order enjoining him from
tearing up the rails. As the injunction was not endorsed, as by law it
should be, he thought it was an ordinary communication, and put it in
his pocket to examine later. The next day he was summoned to show
reason why he should not be found in contempt of court. When the facts
came out, he was, of course, discharged. An examination of seven
leading dailies of the country shows that a dispatch was sent out from
Cleveland stating that Mayor Johnson, after acknowledging service,
pocketed the injunction, and ordered his men to proceed with their
work. In the newspaper-offices this dispatch was then embroidered. One
paper said the mayor told his men to go ahead and ignore the
injunction. Another had the mayor intimating in advance that he would
not obey an order if one were issued. A third invented a conversation
in which the mayor and his superintendent made merry over the
injunction. Not one of the seven journals reported the mayor’s
complete exoneration later.
And the same thing has been done in every city where radicals of any
sort have gained control. Says A. M. Simons, speaking at a conference of
the University of Wisconsin:
The story of the administration of Milwaukee while it was in Socialist
control was a caricature of the truth, so much so that it was found
necessary to establish a weekly bulletin or press service, scarcely an
issue of which did not contain a correction of some news agency story.
Compare the story sent out about Mayor Shank and the public market in
Indianapolis with the almost complete suppression of the fight against
the ice trust by the Socialist interests in Schenectady.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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