the Associated Press; I afterwards saw a letter, signed by Melville E. Stone, general manager of the Associated Press, acknowledging that he had seen it. Here surely was a charge "involving libel per se," and one which I had taken pains to make as emphatic, as unconditional, as damaging as possible. It was a public challenge, appearing on the front page of a newspaper whose circulation for that week was five hundred and forty-eight thousand and forty. Yet the Associated Press did not take up the challenge; it swallowed the insult.
Not only that, but every newspaper having the Associated Press service did the same; some nine hundred newspapers throughout the United States sat in silence and let this challenge pass unanswered. I had the "Appeal to Reason" send a marked copy of this issue to every one of the nine hundred Associated Press papers, and I wrote to my clipping-bureau, asking them to watch especially for mention of the matter. This clipping-bureau is the best in the country, and seldom misses anything of importance. It could not find me a single mention of my challenge to the Associated Press.
I next selected a list of forty of the leading papers of the country, including the twenty to which I had sent the telegram from Denver. I sent them a marked copy of the article, with a letter addressed to the managing editor, pointing out what my challenge meant—that I had publicly indicted the source from which this paper got the news which it gave to the public. Would the paper defend the integrity of its news? Would it force the Associated Press to explain this incident. Three papers replied to my letter. I shall deal with them a little later. The other thirty-seven papers left my letter unanswered. And let it be noted that this included all the papers which make the greatest pose of dignity and honor, such as the "Boston Evening Transcript," the "Springfield Republican," the "New York Times," the "Philadelphia Public Ledger," the "Baltimore Sun," the "Chicago Tribune," the "Louisville Courier-Journal," the "Memphis Commercial-Appeal," the "Atlanta Constitution." Also, I tried the magazines. One week after the publication of my challenge to the Associated Press there had appeared in "Collier's Weekly" a leading editorial entitled "In Justice to the A. P.":
The officers and members of the Associated Press have been kept
busy lately repelling attacks upon that organization. In so far as they
are defending themselves from the charge of wilful distortion of the
