Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/398

372 final judgment passed by the people on the journalist. He has certain deep ingrained prejudices, which, if he were a statesman, might be grave defects; to the journalist, however, they are often, if his vision is correct, a source of strength. Journalism is the only profession where prejudice, like versatility, may be an asset.

In analyzing Hearst and his two principal papers, the New York American and the New York Evening Journal, one fact has been ignored. Though a New Yorker by adoption, he has always remained a loyal Californian. He has a thoroughly western contempt for the things that the East reveres; his success has been made over their heads; being financially able, he has bitterly attacked the banking influence that predominates in the East, and in turn has had visited on him all the social disfavor that his opponents could command. As nearly as possible, the war between Hearst and his opponents has been a class war, for the dispassionate historian must admit, despite all the criticism of Hearst, that he has been a vigorous American and has never advocated reforms outside the line of law or against the constitution, but has always been in full sympathy with his patron saint, Jefferson.

Hearst represents a West that has always been more or less, in Eastern opinion, an appendage to the political sentiment of the country. This interesting view was represented in the declaration of a distinguished statesman who said to the writer, within the last decade, that a political battle then imminent would have to be won by the forces he represented, in order "that the political control of the country might remain in the East." The tone in which he spoke indicated his strong belief that the passing of the control from the East would be not only a political catastrophe but a menace to the country.