AMERICAN NEWSPAPER BOSS

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 91, 16 April 1908, Page 2

AMERICAN NEWSPAPER BOSS

WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST.

Mr Hearst enjoys the distinction of being the best advertised man in the United States. Not even Mr Roosevelt is more talked of there. There can, be- no doubt that Mr Hearst is a power in the land, . but it is by no means easy to estimate the real extent of his influence. An attempt to gauge his significance is made in the fortnightly Review by Mr Sidney Brooks, an acute observer of American life. As an embodiment of his country, Mr Hearst may be "a caricature and a grotesque," but, as Mr Brooks avers, he is a peculiarly American product. .■ .

His father Ayas a hard-headed and fortunate Californian pioneer, who, in silver mines, copper mines, newspapers, railways, and ranches, found the means of amassing a fortune of abouj> ,£4,000,000. Then, he took up politics as* a hobby, and added to his spoils a seat in the United States Senate. His son had been sent up to the eastern University \of Harvard, but Vas expelled for some "mildly mischievous escapade." Returning to San Francisco, young William declined to have .anything to do witTi the paternal mines and ranches. He said they did not interest him, but he asked for the, San Francisco Examiner. The old man had got all he wanted out of it when he made his way into the Senate, so he handed it over as a toy to the young man. William Randolph. Hearst, however, meaht\ to take up: journalism seriously. He had studied Pulitzer's sensational methods in the, New York World, and aspired to be the Pulitzer of the Pacific Coast. As Mr Brooks puts in, he "conducted the Examiner with the keyhole for a point of. view; sensationalism for a policy; crime, scandal, and personalities for a speciality; all vested interests for a punching bag; cartoons, illustrations, and comic supplements for embellishments; and circulation for an object." He succeeded. Senator' Hearst supplied the capital, and in return enjoyed the doubtful satisfaction of seeing the business affairs, characters, and private lives of his. friends and associates held up to ridicule and scorn. In a few years the enterprise was independent of his supplies. The senator marked his sense of apprehension by leaving his fortune to Mrs Hearst, but she is a devoted mother, and the son has always been able to draw upon her for any venture which he had in hand. .

About eleven years ago Mr Hearst made up his mind to duplicate in New York his San Francisco success. He bought' up a disreputable sheet called the Journal, and entered into a lively contest for tne "yellow" championship with the World. Pulitzer was hopelessly beaten at 'his own game. The Journal made the World positively respectable in comparison with it. ; At that time Mr Hearst's only object, was to have his paper known and talked of. He discovered a new stratum of readers, larger*and lower than any previous proprietor had tapped. Now, the Journal under other names exists in several cities. Mr Hearst owns "a continental chain of eight papers, published in the leading cities of America," and many weekly and monthly periodicals. He thus addresses daily an audience of more than 4,000,000 people. "There is nothing," says Mr Brooks, "to be said against his journals, which, in my judgment, they do not deserve. But there is something to be said for .them, which has to be said if the nature of their appeal and of Mr Hearst's power is to be understood. While most of the American papers in the big cities are believed to be under the influence of 'the money power,^ Mr Hearst's have never failed to flaiy tne rich perverter of public funds and properties, and the rich gambler in fraudulent consolidations. They daily explain to the masses how they are being robbed by the trusts and the concessionhunters, juggled with by the politicians, arid betrayed by their elected officers. They unearth the iniquities of a great corporation with the same microscopic diligence that they squander on following up the clues in a murder mystery, or collecting or inventing the details of a society scandal." When Mr Hearst was running, rather more than a year ago, for the Governorship of New York State, the newspaper which opposed him most strongly Collier's Weekly, had to admit his achievements. It confessed that he had made the Central and Union Pacific railroads pay the £24 - 000,000 which they owed the Government, that he had secured a model children's hospital for San Francisco, andJiept the Ice Trust within bounds in New York; that his private law department put some fetters on the Coal Trust, and was mainly instru-

mental in saving New York from the Ramapo plot, which would Have saddled the city with a charge of £40,----000,000 for. water.

Mr Hearst's journals are now used mainly as the means of blatant advertisement of his exploits. "In enormous headlines, and with every artifice of capitals, italics, and cartoons, his papers daily proclaim, and his 4,000,----000 readers hear and believe, that Hearst has forced a popular measure through a reluctant Congress, or exposed another financial 'magnate,' Or procured an official enquiry into the workings of some detested trust, or rescued San Francisco from starvation." Everything Mr Hearst did in his one fruitless term as a- Congressman was vaunted in the same extravagant style. Mr Hearst has gathered around him with the genius of a Carnegie a band of aisle and devoted lieutenants. There is MiArthur Brisbane, who writes "Hearst" articles for the editorial columns of the journal and allows his chief to have all the '.'kudos" of them. Then there is Mr Carvalho, the business manager of the Hearst publications, ,and there are astute lawyers for his law department, and. a prince of organisers, Mr Max. Ihinsen, to manage the Hearst political campaigns. AH of these work together to preach discontent, and prove that Hearst is always battling for the "people" against wealth and privilege. Mr Hearst is a Radical, f and he. appeals to all Radicals, whether they are nominally Democratic or nominally Republican. His aim seems to be to gather a personal following which will enable him to hold the balance of power. By affiliation Mr Hearst is a Democrat, but party allegiance is not a fetish with him. In 1904, at the Presidental election, he owned 200.delegates in the National Democratic Convention. In 1905 he ran for the mayoralty of New York on an independent ticket, and "fought Tammany ,to a standstill." In 1906? he was the ally of Tammany, and accepted as the official Democratic candidate for the State Governorship: In 1907 he broke with Tammany and democracy to "fuse" with the Republicans. That he has succeeded in/forcing himself upon both parties in tuFn is, in spite of Ms failure to secure either mayoralty of governorship, strong testimony to his power. Personally he is quiet, measured, and decorous in dress, appearance, and manner. He possesses a certain dry wit, and is 6ft. 2in. in height, broadrshouldered, deep of chest, and huge>fisted, with powerful, jaw, and large steady blue eyes. He neither smokes . nor drinks^ he eschews racing and society; and his only interests are his home, his papers, and his politics. Such is the man who is;the chief disturbing factor in American public life.