CHAPTER LVI
THE PRESS AND LABOR
I have told many stories of newspaper lies about myself,
and perhaps you thought that was just one person who was
wronged, and it didn't make much difference; but when it
comes to lying about the labor movement, thousands and even
millions of people are wronged, and that surely does make a
difference. When newspapers lie about a strike, they lie about
every one of the strikers, and every one of these strikers and
their wives and children and friends know it. When they see
deliberate and long-continued campaigns to render them odious
to the public, and to deprive them of their just rights, not
merely as workers, but as citizens, a blaze of impotent fury
is kindled in their hearts. And year by year our newspapers
go on storing up these volcanic fires of hate-against the day
when labor will no longer be impotent!
Imagine, if you can, the feelings of a workingman on strike who picks up a copy of the "Wall Street Journal" and reads:
We have a flabby public opinion which would wring its hands in
anguish if we took the labor leader by the scruff of his neck, backed
him up against a wall, and filled him with lead. Countries which consider
themselves every bit as civilized as we do not hesitate about
such matters for a moment.
Whenever it comes to a "show-down" between labor and
capital, the press is openly or secretly for capital—and this
no matter how "liberal" this press may pretend to be. Says
Professor Ross:
During labor disputes the facts are usually distorted to the injury
of labor. In one case (Chicago), strikers held a meeting on a vacant
lot enclosed by a newly-erected billboard. Forthwith appeared, in a
yellow journal professing warm friendship for labor, a front-page
cut of the billboard and a lurid story of how the strikers had built
a "stockade" behind which they intended to bid defiance to the blue-coats.
It is not surprising that when the van bringing these lying
sheets appeared in their quarter of the city, the libeled men overturned
it.
During the struggle of carriage-drivers for a six-day week, certain great dailies lent themselves to a concerted effort of the liverymen to win public sympathy by making it appear that the strikers were
