CHAPTER XXXIV
THE DAILY CAT-AND-DOG FIGHT
There are other newspapers published in this "Roof-garden
of the World." There is the Hearst newspaper, the "Los
Angeles Examiner," which publishes the editorials of Arthur
Brisbane, and follows, somewhat haltingly, the Hearst propaganda
for government ownership. But so far as its local policy
is concerned, it is entirely commercial, its fervors are for the
local industry, of "boosting." It has an especially annoying
habit of disguising its advertisements so as to trap you into
reading them as news. You will be informed in head-lines
of a notable event in local history, and when you read, you
learn that Johnnie Jones, of 2249 S. Peanut Street, sold all
his chickens within two hours by using "Examiner Want Ads."
Again, you read a headline about an aviator just returned from
France, and what you learn about him is that Jones & Co.
have put out twenty thousand pictures of him in twenty
thousand boxes of "Frizzlies." "This confection is especially
delicious," says our naïve "Examiner." And now, as I write,
some editor has an inspiration, and day after day I am confronted
with an illustrated article: "Aspirants to Shapely
Limbs Title. Who owns the most beautiful limbs on the
stage? Look them over."
Later on I shall tell of the "Examiner's" treatment of various radicals. For the present I am dealing with personal experiences, so I relate that in the spring of 1919 I was invited to speak at a mass-meeting of the Jews of Los Angeles, in protest against the pogroms in Poland. The other speakers at this meeting expressed indignation at these pogroms; I endeavored to explain them. The French bankers, who now rule the continent of Europe, are engaged in setting up a substitute for the Russian Tsardom on the east of Germany; and this new Polish empire is using the Jews as a scapegoat, precisely as the Russian Tsardom did. Referring to President Wilson, I said; "I have supported him through the war, and I am not one of those who are denouncing him now. I think he has made a pitiful failure in Europe, but I understand that