Free Republic

HELPING TO MAKE A PRESIDENT, BY WILLIAM INGLIS (Parts 1 and 2) From Collier's, October 7th, 1916. Mr. Inglis was associated with Colonel George Harvey in the conduct of "Harper's Weekly" from 1906 until 1913, when Colonel Harvey sold the paper. During that time Colonel Harvey undertook a campaign of publicity to make Woodrow Wilson president. During the conduct of this campaign Mr. Inglis was Colonel Harvey's first lieutenant.FOREWORD.- From a college professorship to the presidency of the United States in eight short years is a mighty leap. But Woodrow Wilson took it gallantly and landed in the White House....

Standard Oil and its Hirelings of the PressWERE it not for the newspaper press and periodicals of the Hearst's Magazine sort, interests like Mr. Archbold and Standard Oil long ago would have stolen everything to the public back fence. As matters stand, their villain pillage has hardly stopped short of it. Also, it wasn't the law, but the printing press which halted them. The press is the policeman of popular right. President Wilson, observing - and also fearing - the pernicious Criminal Privilege activities of certain subsidized newspapers, in the war over tariff schedules now being fought out in the...

Back in 1990, Richard Streckfuss, an Associate Professor of Journalism at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln wrote a paper titled "Objectivity in Journalism", in which he makes finding the answer to this question remarkably easy. Before the phrase "Objective Journalism" was born, science and news gathering were fused together in thought by Walter Lippmann, the Father of Modern Journalism. Realistically speaking, this one single thing is what earns Lippmann that title. Lippmann's ideal of the objective journalist can be found here, in his book titled "Liberty and the News", on page 82: With this increase of prestige must go a professional...

SOCIALISM INFECTING THE CLERGYTHREE hundred of the clergy of this country are declared to be allied with the Socialist movement by open profession, while many more are secretly in sympathy with the cause, but hesitate for prudential reasons to make an open avowal. Only a few years ago, it is stated, Socialist principles seemed to be confined to a small number of Unitarian preachers, "who, being radical in theology, readily became radical in sociology likewise." But now, we read in a statement issued by the Christian Socialist Fellowship, "not only do the Unitarians smell of the malady, but Episcopalians by...

THE AMERICAN YELLOW PRESS.By Sydney Brooks The late Mr. Joseph Pulitzer was unquestionably one of the most remarkable personalities of latter-day America. Indomitable by nature, of quick, unshackled perceptions, passionate to learn and to experiment, and with a strong vein of idealism running through his lust for power and success and domination, he was fortunate in the fate that landed him, forty-seven years ago, in Boston when America was on the very point of plunging into the most amazing era of material development and exploitation that the world has yet witnessed. The penniless son of a Jewish father and a...

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF YELLOW JOURNALISMBY LYDIA KINGSMILL COMMANDER YELLOW journalism is outwardly distinguished by the flaring makeup of the paper, the striking headlines in startling type and the free use of illustrations; by the attention given to crime, sports, divorces and the tragic aspects of life in general; and by the constant appeal to the emotions in the presentation of the news. Human interest goes into every column; everything is a story and is told as such. No papers were ever before, no others are now, so execrated and so beloved as are the yellow journals. But whether approved or...

THE ASSOCIATED PRESSBY ITS MANAGER MELVILLE E. STONE THE METHOD OF OPERATION WITH the accession of Mr. William Henry Smith to the office of general manager of the Associated Press, less than twenty-five years ago, there came a change for the better in the administration. The Western papers which had been admitted to a share in the management demanded more enterprise and a report of more varied character. The policy of limiting the field to "routine news" - sport, markets, shipping, etc. - was abandoned, and the institution began to show evidences of real journalistic life and ability. It startled...

What is visible to all men is that a young man of enormous energy and great journalistic instinct has dedicated a fortune as great as that of Monte Christo to the creation of a newspaper which, instead of confining itself to the function of chronicling other men’s deeds, boldly asserts its determination to supersede the journalism that chronicles by the journalism that acts. Other newspapers may write about things. The Journal is determined to do them. William Thomas Stead from "A Romance of the Pearl of the Antilles" Stead wrote this in reference to William Randolph Hearst's and Karl Decker's...

A ROMANCE OF THE PEARL OF THE ANTILLESA CUBAN HEROINE AND HER RESCUER By William Thomas Stead FEW things that happened last month are more worthy of chronicling than the brilliantly successful achievement of Karl Decker in rescuing the Cuban heroine, Miss Evangelina Cisneros, from the State prison of Havana. I.-THE JOURNALISM THAT ACTS. Apart altogether from the interest which belongs to it as an episode which recalls the daring enterprises of the adventurers of the Middle Ages, the incident marks a significant phase in the evolution of the journalistic profession. Newspaper reporters have had many assignments of various kinds,...

THE MAKING OF PUBLIC OPINIONBy William Kittle. July 1909 DURING the last decade, public opinion has been made for and against three great special interests in the United States: the railway companies, the city utility companies and a few industrial corporations like the Beef Trust and the Standard Oil Company. These interests necessarily seek to obtain new or to retain old special privileges. The railway companies resist any important regulation of rates or service. The city utility companies seek the most favorable and profitable franchises. Some of the industrial corporations have established monopolies injurious to the public. It has become...

William Randolph Hearst - Acceptance of the Independence League Nomination (October 3rd, 1906)Two Things are of special importance as issues in this campaign, liberty and prosperity. By far the greater of these is liberty, for a man not truely free is not really a man at all. The object of the Independence League is to resist the attacks upon human liberty, upon government of the people menaced by corporation rule, and to resist the attacks upon general prosperity by those same corporations, and by dishonest financial agencies. I accept with gratitude and with a deep feeling of responsibility the nomination...

PLATFORM OF THE INDEPENDENCE PARTY, ADOPTED AT CHICAGO, ILL., JULY 28, 1908.We, Independent America citizens, representing the Independence party in forty-four States and two Territories, have met in national convention to nominate, absolutely Independent of all other political parties, candidates for President and Vice-President of the United States Our action is based upon a determination to wrest the conduct of public affairs from the hands of selfish interests, political tricksters and corrupt bosses, and make the Government as the founders intended, an agency for the common good. At a period of unexampled national prosperity and promise, a staggering blow was...

From the London M.A.P. (Mainly About People), June 13th, 1908, a conversation with William Randolph Hearst is recorded: Mr. Hearst was once asked to define "yellow" journalism. "It is furiously active journalism," he replied, "journalism that is not content with merely printing news, but which aims rather to educate and influence its audience, and through it, to accomplish something for the benefit of the community and the and the whole country." A larger view of this can be seen in W. T. Stead's character sketch of Hearst: "'Yellow journalism,'" said Mr. Hearst, "is active journalism. It is the journalism which...

This is tyranny. We have reached the point to where Obama now openly states that he is a despot, a dictator. King Barry I says: "Where Congress won't act, I will" (0:33) "I'll keep doing what I can on my own" (3:27) "All of them can be done without Congress" (4:02) "In the meantime I'll do whatever I can" (4:10) That's four times in four minutes, that Obama openly put his tyrannical beliefs on display as well as intent to commit more unilateral imperial activity. At the Constitutional Convention, June 1st, 1787, Roger Sherman said the following: "I favor appointment...

Matthew Arnold was no fan of William Thomas Stead. In an article titled "Up to Easter", Arnold writes, among other things: But we have to consider the new voters, the democracy, as people are fond of calling them. They have many merits, but among them is not that of being, in general, reasonable persons who think fairly and seriously. We have had opportunities of observing a new journalism which a clever and energetic man has lately invented. It has much to recommend it; it is full of ability, novelty, variety, sensation, sympathy, generous instincts ; its one great fault is...

THE PRESIDENT AND THE NEGRO August 7th, 1913 Mr. Wilson finds himself thus early in his Administration at the parting of the ways in the matter of the negro citizen. His nomination of Mr. A. E. Patterson, of Oklahoma, as Register of the Treasury, has been withdrawn at the nominee's request, and for the first time in a quarter of a century the office is to go to some one other than to a negro. Mr. Patterson asked to be allowed to withdraw because of the violent opposition of the negrophobe Southern Senators - Vardaman, Tillman, Hoke Smith, and the...

This original document, signed by, among others, J.G. Phelps Stokes, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Oscar Lovell Triggs, Clarence S. Darrow, B.O. Flower, William English Walling, Leonard D. Abbott, Jack London, and Upton Sinclair. Its complete text is as follows: In the opinion of the undersigned the recent remarkable increase in the Socialist vote in America should serve as an indication to the educated men and women in the country that Socialism is a thing concerning which it is no longer wise to be indifferent. The undersigned, regarding its aims and fundamental principles with sympathy, and believing that in...

Have you ever come across the suggestion that the America that existed during the time of the Founders is incompatible with "modern America"? There's a huge problem with this. This idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. Its true. Progressives believe in centralized planning, which is an older concept than individual Liberty. All we have to do is ask Adam Smith. In his book "The Theory of Moral...

THE INFLUENCE OF HENRY GEORGE IN ENGLANDThe social philosophy of the "West-End club contains a doctrine of "agitation" which easily explains the influence of such a man as Henry George. "Agitation" thus interpreted implies neither a genuine grievance in the agitated, nor an honest purpose in the agitator; for the one is substituted an irrational discontent, for the other a mere lust for popularity and power. The agitator thus conceived is an uninstructed "spouter," who plays upon a natural fund of envy and cupidity latent in the masses, stimulating an attack upon the established order of things. By such foolish...

On October 3rd, 1910, at a campaign rally at the Taylor Opera House, Woodrow Wilson said the following: If you elect me I will be an unconstitutional Governor in that respect. I will talk to the people as well as to the Legislature, and I will use all moral force with that body to bring about what the people demand. I am going to take every important debate in the Legislature out on the stump and discuss it with them. If the people do not agree, then no harm will be done to the legislators, but the people will have...