HEARST AND HIS PRESS.

Evening Star, Issue 20059, 27 December 1928, Page 10

HEARST AND HIS PRESS.

An American cause eclehro is revived in to-day’s cables. Tho administration of justice.in the United States has often created a feeling of amazement among those who have been accustomed to the procedure in the'courts of Britain oilier dominions! Some time ago there was a murder trial which hold the attention of the United Statea public in a remarkable way. Special article writers were commissioned by newspapers, and the sensational stories they produced, apparently without any heed of the risk of being committed for contempt of court, attracted the unfavourable notice of journals elsewhere in tho English-speaking world. Tho string of papers throughout the States owned by William Randolph Hearst took notable part in this remarkable exhibition. During tho progress of the trial the Hearst papers (as the cable reminds us) pursued the two accused (a man and his .sister) “ with extreme ferocity through a 'most sensational maze of evidence.” The jury acquitted the prisoners, and subsequently they instituted libel proceedings against the Hearst newspapers. These proceedings have now been abandoned on Hearst paying a substantial doceur to the pair who had been the objects of his attack. It is only a few weeks since the name of Hearst was prominently before the public in connection with international affairs, Tho Paris representative of tho

Hearst papers was arrested, subjected to a. searching inquisition concerning Ids cabling to New York tho text of the Anglo-French naval agreement prior to its official release, and was expelled from France, His explanation, believed to bo untrue, was that Hearst himself had handed him the document for transmission to America. The risk of provoking international friction is no deterrent to Hearst, since it has been an axiom with him ever since lie entered journalism in 1887 that his papers must have advertisement in all ways and at all costs. It is said on good authority that the Spanish-Amo-rican War of 1897 was a war cf Hearst’s own deliberate making. There was a story current that, ill reply to a message from his war artist in Cuba seeking instruction, Hearst cabled: “You furnish the- pictures and I’ll furnish tho war.” This, however, is not corroborated by the author of a recent biography of Hearst, an American journalist who worked in tho Hearst organisation. But how few scruples Hearst had is revealed by certain instructions ho gave to ouo of his foreign correspondents. When the Spanish Admiral was preparing to move from European waters with a squadron for an attack upon Admiral Dewey in Manila Bay, in tho Phillipiues, Hearst instructed this correspondent in a letter (reproduced by bis biographer) to “ buy some big English steamer at tho eastern end of the Mediterranean and take her to some part of tho Suez Canal, where wo can then sink her and obstruct tho passage of tho Spanish warships.” However, the Spanish admiral’s expedition was abandoned, and there was no necessity to put into practice this contemplated piece of sabotage on the grand scale, involving tho gravest complications with those neutral nations, including Britain, controlling tho Suez Canal. Practically from tho beginning tbo Hearst papers, until a few years ago, preached implacable hatred of England. Whether or not it was the participation of tho United States in tho Great War which brought about a change, it is a fact that they now carry day by day a call for friendship and understanding between tho Eng-lish-speaking peoples. Tho list of his papers includes twenty-threo dailies, scattered right across America, and half a dozen monthly magazines, his reading public being estimated at twenty millions. It is an enormous power for one man to wield, and how ho has used it is sufficiently indicated by the fact that ho is tho progenitor of “yellow journalism.” Tho nickname, it appears, derives from “ Tho Yellow Kid,” ono of tho scrirl subjects in tho comic supplement to tho New York ‘Journal,’ a paper in which, according to ono critic, tho farthest regions of vulgarity were explored, and all the laws of decency as regards policy and public conduct were broken. Unfortunately the danger of one-man control of a big chain of newspapers is now being complained of in Britain, Tho success of the late Lord Northclilfo in that direction has encouraged others to follow his methods. Not only iu London, but all over the provinces independent publications have been bought up and absorbed by one or other of the big syndicates which now control far too large a share of tho direction of public opinion than is good for the public interests.