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 CHAPTER XLVI

THE BRIBE DIRECT

We are accustomed to the idea that in Europe there exists a "reptile press," meaning a press whose opinions are for sale, not merely to politicians and governments, but to promoters and financiers; we read of the "Bourse press" of Paris, and understand that these papers accept definite cash sums for publishing in their columns news favorable to great speculations and industrial enterprises. I have heard America congratulated that it had no such newspapers; I myself was once sufficiently naïve so to congratulate America!

Naturally, it is not so easy to prove direct bribery of the press. When the promoter of an oil "deal" or of a franchise "grab" wishes to buy the support of a newspaper, he does not invite the publisher onto the sidewalk and there count a few thousand dollar bills into his hands. But as a person who steals once will go on stealing, so a newspaper proprietor who takes bribes becomes a scandal to his staff, and sooner or later bits of the truth leak out. America has been fortunate in the possession of one bold and truth-telling newspaper editor, Fremont Older; and when you read his book, "My Own Story," you discover that we have a "reptile press" in America, a press that is for sale for cash.

The chances are that you never heard of Fremont Older's book. It was published over a year ago, but with the exception of a few radical papers, American Journalism maintained about it the same silence it will maintain about "The Brass Check." For twenty-five years Older was managing editor of a great newspaper, and now, in the interest of public welfare, he has told what went on inside that newspaper office. Older began as a plain, every-day hireling of privilege, but little by little his mind and his conscience awakened, he took his stand for righteousness in his city, and fought the enemies of righteousness, not merely at peril of his job, but at peril of his life. The first time I met Older, ten years ago, he had just been kidnapped by thugs and carried away in an automobile and locked under armed guard in a compartment of a