interfering with funerals. One paper falsely stated that a strong force of police was being held in reserve in case of "riots," and that policemen would ride beside the non-union drivers of hearses. Another, under the misleading headline, "Two Funerals Stopped by Striking Cabmen," described harmless colloquies between hearse-drivers and pickets. This was followed up by a solemn editorial, "May a Man Go to His Long Rest in Peace?"—although, as a matter of fact, the strikers had no intention of interfering with funerals. . . .
That was in Chicago, ten years ago. And now, as I write,
the employes of the packing-houses, my old friends of "The
Jungle," are on strike again, and the Chicago newspapers are
at their usual game of deliberate lying: "Violence is Expected,"
"Situation is Critical," and so on. It happens that
an honest man, Alfred W. McCann, is on the scene. He
writes:
I say it isn't true. To the shame of the press, no foundation can
be discovered for the wild stories now filling their columns, spreading
public anxiety and inciting labor to outbursts of indignation against
what is called "the deliberate misrepresentation of the press."
The packers advertise heavily in Chicago newspapers; and
so also do the Chicago department-stores. Says Prof. Ross:
In the same city (Chicago), during a strike of the elevator men
in the large stores, the business agent of the elevator-starters' union
was beaten to death, in an alley behind a certain emporium, by a
"strong-arm" man hired by that firm. The story, supported by affidavits,
was given by a responsible lawyer to three newspaper men, each
of whom accepted it as true and promised to print it. The account
never appeared.
Try, for a moment, to put yourself in the position of a
girl-slave of one of these big department-stores. You resist
the flirtatious advances of the floor-walker, and continue to eat
your twenty-cent dinners; but after a few years you grow
desperate, and in the face of the heaviest pressure you organize
and declare a strike for better pay. How much chance do you
stand for fair play from the newspapers? Why, they won't
even print the names of the stores against which you are striking!
Says Max Sherover:
While addressing a street meeting, held under the auspices of the
Retail Clerks' Union, in front of Stern Brothers' department-store,
Miss Elizabeth Dutcher was arrested at the instigation of one of the
store-managers. Miss Dutcher is highly prominent in social and labor
circles, and the papers did not dare to be entirely silent about the
arrest. Every paper in New York, except one—and that one does not
