“SWINTON UNKOWN TO US”

Evening Star, Issue 22619, 10 April 1937, Page 27

“SWINTON UNKOWN TO US”

ECHO OF THE SCRIMGEOUB TIRADE (Per United Press Association.] INVERCARGILL, April 9. The New York ‘ Times ’ has no knowledge either of an editor named John Swintou or of the attack on the American newspaper Press, which was attributed to him by the Controller of the National Commercial Broadcasting Service (the Rev. C. G. Serimgeour) in a broadcast address from the “ Friendly Road ” station in Auckland last Sunday night. In the course of a violent attack on the New Zealand Press, Mr Serimgeour expressed his agreement with a quotation attributed to John Swinton, who he referred to as a former editor of tbe New York * Times.’ In this Swinton was alleged to have stated that there was no such thing as a free and independent Press in America, that the business of the journalist was to destroy the truth and to pervert and vilify, and to sell himself and his country for his employers. . . t .. , . The ‘ Southland Times ’ sent the following cablegram to the New York ‘ Times Have you or any other New York paper had an editor named John Swinton ? Is his alleged attack on the newspaper Press fact or fiction. The following reply was received tonight from the New York ‘Times j—“Swinton unknown to us; likewise Ilfs attack.”

[Mr John Swinton, described as a former editor of the. old ■ New York ‘ Tribune,’ at a banquet on his retirement from office, is reputed to have said: “ There is no such thing in America as an independent Press. You know it as I know it. There is not one of you who would dare write his honest opinions. lam paid 250 dollars (£SO) per week to keep ray honest opinions out of the paper 1 am, connected with. We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are pimping jacks—they pull, the strings and we dance.” Some years later the speech was revived by Mr Upton Sinclair as the peroration of an attack made by him in ‘ The Brass Check on the methods of American journalism. Since then it has been frequently quoted by Labour politicians.]