Page:The Brass Check (Sinclair 1919).djvu/322

 CHAPTER L

THE PRESS AND PUBLIC WELFARE

As a result of the operation of all these forces, we have a class-owned press, representing class-interests, protecting class-interests with entire unscrupulousness, and having no conception of the meaning of public welfare. These words may seem extreme, but I mean them to be taken literally. When our press says "the public," it means the property-owning class, and if in a newspaper-office you should assume it meant anything else, you would make yourself ridiculous. "We are not in business for our health," is the formula whereby this matter is summed up in the "business-office" of our newspapers. It is only in the editorial columns that any other idea is suggested.

What kind of "public welfare" will you consider? Here, for example, is William Salisbury, working for the "Chicago Chronicle," owned by a great banker. Was this banker working for the public welfare? He was working for his own welfare so diligently that later on he was sent to jail. Is Mr. Salisbury working for the public welfare? No, Mr. Salisbury is working for an actress, he tells us, and the actress is working for a diamond ring. Mr. Salisbury comes upon a "tip" that will earn him the price of the ring. A certain merchant has conceived the idea of a co-operative department store, an enterprise which might be of great service to the public; but if the big department-stores get wind of it, they will kill it. Mr. Salisbury takes the problem to his city editor, who consults owner Walsh over the telephone, and then tells Mr. Salisbury to write the story in full.

"The people who are getting this thing up are not advertisers, he added. "The big department-stores are. Besides, Walsh doesn't believe in co-operation or municipal ownership, or anything like that, so go ahead."

I wrote two columns. All the other papers copied the story.

The co-operative department-store was not started. The owners of the big emporiums in the downtown district joined forces against it. They got an option on the only available building by greatly over-*bidding the small merchants. The latter, whose combined capital was less than the wealth of any one of their powerful rivals, gave up the fight in despair.