CHAPTER XLIV
THE ADVERTISING BOYCOTT
If the newspaper fails to protect its big advertisers, the big
advertisers will get busy and protect themselves. This happens
every now and then, and every newspaper editor has seen it
happen. Sometimes an editor gets sick of the game and quits,
and then we have a story. For example, William L. Chenery,
who was editor of the "Rocky Mountain News" during the
Colorado coal-strike, tells me that "the business men of Denver
attempted both an advertising and a social boycott in order to
prevent the publication of strike news. . . . I was told that
the owner of the paper would not be admitted to the Denver
Country Club so long as our editorials seemed to support the
cause of the strikers."
Or take the case of Boston. George French, managing editor of a Boston paper, told how his paper lost four hundred dollars on account of one item which the "interests" had forbidden. Says Mr. French, "That led to a little personal conversation, and to my retiring from the paper." He goes on to state:
You cannot get anything into the newspapers that in any way
rubs up against the business policy of the banks and department
stores, or of the public service corporations. Those three great departments
of business are welded together with bands ever so much
stronger than steel, and you cannot make any impression on them.
News of department stores that is discreditable, or in any way attracts
unfavorable attention, is all squelched, all kept out of the papers.
I have told how Otis of Los Angeles ran the "Times" as a
Republican paper and an "open-shop" paper, and at the same
time ran secretly the "Herald," a Democratic paper and a
"closed-shop" paper. Here is a glimpse of the "Herald"
office, as narrated by Frank E. Wolfe, former managing editor
of the paper.
The Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association took up the proposition
of an aviation meet at Domingues Field. This was managed by
the walking delegate of the Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association.
The manager gave out the concessions. I went to Domingues Field
