The Brass Check; A Study of American Journalism 12+

📓 This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1920 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER LVIII "POISONED AT THE SOURCE" I have been privileged to examine a mass of material, some three or four million printed and typewritten words, the evidence collected for the defense of Max Eastman and Art Young, when they were indicted for criminal libel in November, 1913, at the instance of the Associated Press. These three or four million printed and typewritten words enable us to enter the offices of the Associated Press, and to watch its work hour by hour. They enable us to study the process whereby the public opinion of America is "poisoned at the source." Three hundred miles from our national capital, in the lonely mountains of West Virginia, exists an empire of coal, governed in all respects as Russia was governed in the days of the Tsardom. I take up two printed volumes of testimony given before the investigating committee of the United States Senate, a total of 2,114 closely printed pages; I turn these pages at random, and pick out a few heads that will give you glimpses of how things are managed by the coal barons of West Virginia: "Cheek weighmen guaranteed by law, but not allowed to the miners." "Men paid in scrip which they could not cash." "Men discharged and put out of their houses, as fast as t...