Modern industry, however, requires millions of literate workers. The general level of education and information must rise. The new ruling classes, the merchant princes, the industrialists, the finance capitalists, are forced to accede to this trend. Their attitude toward the press changes. Instead of seeking to limit the volume of newspaper information, they seek to control the content and use the papers as a tool. The deliberate spread of misinformation and class propaganda replaces the tactic of suppression. Neither government, nor the ruling classes who dominate the government, try to restrict this outpouring. That was a problem in the age of feudalism; the true problem today is that the press is monopolized by a wealthy and powerful clique. It has become one of the most powerful instruments of the capitalist State, on a par with the government itself! “The use as well as the misuse of information has made the power of suggestion the decisive force in world affairs,” says Dean Ackerman of the Columbia School of Journalism, a pillar of the news industry. “It can cause or prevent war. It can strengthen or destroy a democracy. It can build or wreck a nation.” _Chapter III_ WORDS FOR SALE Class control of the press does not mean simple operation in the interests of capitalist newspaper owners. The owners are kept in line by the class as a whole so that they protect the interests of Big Business, and express the views of capital in general, rather than merely personal views. The pressure of advertisers, the family connections of the publisher and so on, do not fully explain the capitalist owner’s loyalty to his class. There is a deeper reason. The class function is so thoroughly built into the structure of the American newspaper industry that even millionaire mavericks, Marshall Fields, can stray but slightly from the class corral. The publishers themselves are powerless to change the over-all character of the press as the voice of finance capital. The “built-in” class control of the press did not come about through a convention or secret meeting of machiavellian bankers, nor even through the constant pressure of the National Association of Manufacturers. It came about in a way no one could have planned. It was a historical process of a complicated kind. The best thing we can do is to study the process and the resulting structure of the press without oversimplifying. Subsidies