When is a bribe not a bribe? When it is an order for extra copies? When it is a share in a land deal? When it is a nomination for senator? When it is an advertising contract? For example, is this a bribe? Arthur Brisbane, the most highly paid and most widely read editorial writer in America, serves announcement to the public that he is going to follow with regard to the drama a policy of "constructive criticism"; he is going to tell the people about the plays that are really worth seeing, so that the people may go to see them. He writes a double-column editorial, praising a play, and two or three days later there appears in the "Evening Journal" a full-page advertisement of this play. Brisbane writes another editorial, praising another play, and a few days later there appears a full-page advertisement of this play. This happens again and again, and all play-producers on Broadway understand that by paying one thousand dollars for a full-page advertisement in the "New York Evening Journal," they may have a double-column of the "constructive criticism" of Arthur Brisbane!
Or is this a bribe? There is a fight for lower gas-rates in Boston, and Louis Brandeis, now a Justice of the Supreme Court, makes a plea in the interest of the public. One Boston newspaper gives half a column of Brandeis' arguments; no other Boston newspaper gives one word of Brandeis' arguments; but every Boston newspaper prints a page of the gas company's advertisements, paid for at one dollar per line!
If you will count these things as bribery, you are no longer at a loss for evidence. You discover that great systems of corruption of the press have been established; the bribing of American Journalism has become a large-scale business enterprise, which has been fully revealed by government investigations, and proven by the sworn testimony of those who do the work.
