CHAPTER XLI

THE OWNER IN POLITICS

What counts with newspapers, as everywhere else in the business world, is not so much the bulk of the wealth as its activity. Wealth which is invested in government bonds and farm-mortgages is asleep, and will stay asleep until the profit system itself is threatened. On the other hand, one or two hundred thousand dollars which happens to be in the hands of new men, trying to break into the game, may be exercising an influence out of all proportion to its amount. Such wealth may be bidding for a new franchise. It will come to the newspaper publisher and offer him stock; or it will point out to him that if the franchise is granted, certain real estate that he holds will be increased in value; or it will offer to help nominate him for mayor; or it will point out to him that his rival newspaper is enlisted on the other side, and is looking for some unrighteous graft. The story of every newspaper is a story of such a game of power-politics incessantly going on. No newspaper can exist without taking part in it, because every newspaper wields influence, and every newspaper must cast its decision on every issue that arises. Every paper is expected to have its candidates for political office; every paper is expected to have its political policies, and inevitably in our system these candidates and these policies are a screen behind which great financial interests move to their ends.

For example, here is the "Denver Post," as portrayed by Judge Lindsey, founder of the children's court. Lindsey is telling in his book, "The Beast," how one of the political machines sought to use him as a candidate for Governor:

A few days later the "Post" endorsed me editorially as a candidate for Governor, and there was a flurry in the corporation camp. The paper was no more than on the streets before Mr. Field (telephone magnate) . . . made a frantic effort to have the edition stopped and the paper's support reconsidered. But the "Post" had just lost in a fight with Evans (gas magnate) about a public franchise deal, and the proprietors were eager for revenge. Their newspaper rivalry with Senator Patterson made them ambitious to defeat him as leader of the reform Democrats, by forcing my nomination in spite of him. I found myself in the storm-centre of a small political cyclone.