statement attacking the "Masses" and defending their own attitude toward the news, which statement was published in practically every paper in New York. I remember particularly that our organ of civic virtue, the "New York Evening Post," published it in full. It included this sort of "dope":
If these young men had investigated before they spoke, they
would never have said what they did; for if there is a clean thing
in the United States it is the Associated Press. The personnel of
the service is made up as a whole of newspaper men of the finest
type; throughout the profession employment in its service is regarded
as an evidence of character and reliability. No general policy of suppression
or distortion could be carried on without the knowledge and
indeed the active connivance of these men, stationed at strategic
points all over the world. Aside from that, the Associated Press has
the active competition of several other aggressive press associations
and thousands of special correspondents, and any laxity or deliberate
failure on its part would be exposed instantly to its members, who
would be quick to resent and punish any such procedure. These
members, some nine hundred in number, represent every shade of
political and economic opinion, and it is absurd to suppose that a
general policy of distortion or suppression could be carried on without
immediate exposure.
The editors of the "Masses," of course, proceeded to
collect evidence, and the Associated Press must have realized
very quickly that they were in for serious trouble. They
caused a subservient district attorney to bring another indictment,
charging libel against the individual who had been
portrayed in the cartoon: the purpose of the change being
that they hoped to exclude from the trial all evidence against
the Associated Press as an organization, and to force the
"Masses" to prove that this one individual had had personal
knowledge of each instance of news suppression and perversion.
Gilbert E. Roe, who was preparing the case for the "Masses," asked me to tell him of my experiences with the Associated Press, and in talking the matter over he explained what would be required to constitute legal evidence of the suppression of news. I had no such legal evidence in the case of the "condemned meat industry," because I had not kept copies of my letters to the Associated Press, and I had not kept the clippings of what they actually did send out on the story. I promised Mr. Roe that the next time I went to the bat with the "A. P.," I would take pains to get proper evidence; and now in Denver I came suddenly upon my op-
