Page:The Brass Check (Sinclair 1919).djvu/88

 Tribune" and the "Boston Evening Transcript" and the "Baltimore Sun," which are read by rich old gentlemen and maiden aunts, and can hardly ever be forced to admit to their columns any new or vital event or opinion. These are "kept" papers, in the strictest sense of the term, and do not have to hustle on the street for money. They serve the pocket-*books of the whole propertied class—which is the meaning of the term "respectability" in the bourgeois world. On the other hand the "yellow" journals, serving their own pocket-*books exclusively, will often print attacks on vested wealth, provided the attacks are startling and sensational, and provided the vested wealth in question is not a heavy advertiser. An illustration of what I mean is the following, which appeared in the "New York American" for September 6, 1908:

U. S. NAVY ADMITS ROTTEN ARMOR

Carnegie Co.'s Profit, $700,000

ADMIRAL MASON SAYS OREGON NOW CARRIES 400 TONS

Indiana, Massachusetts, New York and Others Also Have Defective Plates

FACTS HIDDEN 15 YEARS

Revelations in Upton Sinclair's New Novel Are Fully Verified

Washington, Sept. 5—Rear-Admiral W. P. Mason, Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance, in an interview to-day admitted that the battle-*ship Oregon, once the pride of the United States Navy, has carried since the day she was built 400 tons of defective armor plate.

In addition the naval authorities reluctantly told that the conning tower of the Oregon, which by expert testimony nearly fifteen years ago was shown to be full of blowholes, is still on this vessel, which may any day be called in defending the country against an enemy.

It is also known that the armor manufactured by the Carnegie Steel Company, Limited, up to the latter part of 1893, which Hilary A. Herbert, then Secretary of the Navy, recommended be stripped from the Indiana, New York, Massachusetts and several other smaller vessels has never been removd.

The investigation made by the "American" was prompted by the assertion in Upton Sinclair's new book "The Money-changers," that "there are ships in our navy covered with rotten armor plate that was sold to the Government for four or five times what it cost."

Referring to the investigation in 1893-94, which resulted in the celebrated armor plate scandal, the author says: "Nothing much was ever done about it. The Government could not afford to let the real facts get out. But, of course, the insiders in the navy knew about it, and the memory will last as long as the ships last."

This part of the book is a bitter attack on several well-known men who have been connected for years with the steel industry, and