public. You are an Associated Press newspaper, and your honor is definitely bound up with that of the organization which serves you. You sell Associated Press news to the public. If the Associated Press news is false news, you are selling false news to the public, and you are refusing the public any opportunity to judge a most serious, a carefully documented charge that this news is false. It is true that you published my telegram to the President in one edition of your paper. But it is also true that you published it only because I sent it to you. The Associated Press did not send it to you. And I cannot always be in Colorado, and cannot always make it my business to supply you with antidotes to the poison which you are getting from the Associated Press. Only today, for example, you are, through the agency of the Associated Press, responsible for suppressing an important piece of news from Colorado: that is to say, the fact that Judge Lindsey has issued a statement defending himself, and especially the women who went with him, against the charges which have been made against them by the "interests" in Colorado. The "New York World" gave that letter a column, from its special correspondent. The "New York Call," having the Laffan Service, also had some account of the letter. You, having the Associated Press service, have not a word about it. And this is a vital and most important piece of news.
I then went on to tell about the "Evening Post" and its
promise to investigate. I said:
The "Times" is involved in the matter in exactly the same way,
and to exactly the same extent as the "Evening Post." The "Times"
published the officially inspired defense of the Associated Press in
exactly the same way as the "Evening Post." I believe that it is up to
you to explain the reasons for your silence in this matter. I believe
that if you maintain silence, I shall be justified in declaring to all the
world that you have shown yourself in this matter a newspaper without
a high sense of honor, and false to the motto which you carry, "All the
News that's Fit to Print." I assure you that I shall make this charge
against you on many occasions in future. You may think that the
five hundred thousand a week circulation of the "Appeal to Reason"
is a factor which you can afford to neglect, but I believe that in the
course of time you will realize that you were mistaken in permitting
me to place you on record in this matter.
So ends the story of my test of the Associated Press and
its newspapers. In the second part of this book, which deals
with causes, I shall return to the subject, and show exactly
why these things happen: Why the "New York Times" is
without honor where the Associated Press is concerned, and
just how many thousands of dollars it would have cost the
"New York Evening Post" if its managing editor had carried
out his bold promise to me.
