Senator LaFollette: Have the members of your association or any member of your association complained that you suppressed important news?
Mr. Stone: Oh, yes, sir, we have had that for years.
Senator LaFollette: That you have colored news?
Mr. Stone: No, sir, I do not think anybody has ever said that. Well, I don't know about that. We have had complaints on all sides.
This is the Committee on Finance of the United States
Senate, holding hearings on the subject of reciprocity with
Canada (Senate Document 56, Sixty-second Congress, First
Session, Vol. II). The newspapers of the country want a
clause by which they can get free paper-pulp from Canada;
so the Associated Press sends out full reports of the testimony
of newspaper publishers before the Senate Committee. But
when certain farmers appear and oppose the reciprocity
scheme—listen to Senator McCumber, questioning Herman
Ridder, a director of the Associated Press:
How do you account for the fact, which every senator here
must have noticed, that while these farmers were giving their testimony
the reporters of the Associated Press leaned back in their chairs
day after day scarcely taking a note, and that the moment any man
came forward to give testimony in favor of this bill every pencil
came out and every pad was on the table and all of our good friends
were studiously at work? And that has been the case all through
these hearings.
And again:
It is a notorious fact that we have been able to get but one side
of the question before the public so far as these hearings are concerned.
Also, consider the testimony brought out by the Senate
Committee on the Judiciary (sixty-third Congress, First Session,
Senate Resolution 92, Vol. II). It appears that the
head of the Sugar Trust had issued a long statement, advocating
free raw sugar, and this press-agent material had been
sent out in full by the Associated Press. The senators question
Melville E. Stone, to find out why, and they cannot even
get the name of the Associated Press correspondent who
handled the material! It is brought out that the beet sugar
interests of the West, which are fighting the Sugar Trust,
have made bitter complaint concerning this article, and have
been to the head of the Denver office of the Associated Press
to demand that their side too shall be given a hearing. You
