have done here in this office, but you can guess. They've bought the Council."
Mr. Salisbury, you see, is only a reporter, so all he gets is
gossip and suspicion. He notes that the Kansas City, Pittsburg
& Gulf Railway is completing a line to Port Arthur,
Texas; the railway company is advertising heavily in the
"Times," and he is sent to write up "a two-column interview
upon the beauties of Port Arthur." Again, he tells us:
I could write columns about Cuban revolutions, and anti-cigarette
and anti-high hat laws. But there were things that I couldn't write
about at all, and other things that I had to write as the city editor
told me, and as the owner or managing editor told him to tell me.
These included street railway and paving and gas and telephone and
other corporation measures, and anti-department store bills. And the
City Hall reporters of the three other newspapers wrote of such things
just as I did—from dictation.
Again, in Kansas City are great packing-houses, and the
people of Kansas City think they should have cheaper meat.
The newspapers take up the campaign, and Mr. Salisbury
tells what comes of it:
I did some detective work. At the end of several days I found
that all the packing-houses were represented at a meeting each week in
the Armour Building, at Fifth and Delaware Streets. I gave a negro
porter five dollars to show me the room. It was his business to bring
the packers wine and cigars during the sessions at which they fixed
the prices of food for millions of people. He pointed out the chairs
in which each of them sat. He told me their names. He was willing
to arrange for me to listen in the next room when the meeting was
held again.
I returned to the "Times" office in a fever of excitement. I told what I knew. The managing editor consulted with the business manager. Then he came to me and said: "We won't print any more meat trust stories for a while."
Several days later I saw packing-house advertisements in all the newspapers. But none of the papers published any more news about the price of meat for a very long time.
I quote this story, and then I realize that I have got out
of my classification; this isn't a bribe, this is an advertisement!
I can only plead that it is hard to keep to a classification,
because those who are corrupting the press do not keep to it.
They use various methods; and sometimes the methods shade
into one another, so that only a legal expert could sort
them out!
