AMERICAN “HERO”

Hokitika Guardian, 27 December 1930, Page 6

AMERICAN “HERO”

HEARST’S BIG PARADE. SAN FRANCISCO, November 15. For several weeks William Randolph Hearst, the publiser of a syndicate ot American newspapers, admittedly antiBritisli in policy, has been the central figure in a number of carefully arranged receptions from New York to San Francisco, folloAving his dramatic expulsion from France. * It was in Chicago that Hearst and his reception Avent “the limit,” headed as it was by Mayor William Hale Thompson, avlio “saved America from King George?” The Mayor of the windy city showed 50,000,000 Frenchmen they Avere wrong by turning Chicago upside doAvn for the benefit oi the American neAvspaper king. To the tune of considerable tumult and shouting on the part of Henrst’s tAvo Chicago neAvspapers, the “Evening American” and the “Herald and Examiner,” the Mayor cracked his political Avhip o\ r er the city and set into motion hordes of people to /s provide the publisher Avith a grand reception for having been ousted from France because of his anti-French attitude. In consequence, Chicago Avas in an uproar. Nearly 5000 automobiles, 50 floats and tAvo score bands drafted by “Big Bill” Thompson “by invitation,” jammed their Avay on Michigan Avenue to form a 26-mile parade. Police Guard Parade. Fourteen hundred policemen abandoned Chicago to its hoodlums as they carried out the Mayor’s orders to prevent any break in the parade, under penalty of being hailed before thes Civil Service Trial Board for neglect of duty. Among the officials who Avere not pressed into service for the special occasion were those Avho were under the embarrassing necessity of capturing the bandits who robbed the Mayor’s Avife of 17,000 dollars’ worth of jewellery. Flags fluttered over Soldiers’ Field which seats 110,000 persons, where) “Big Bill” hoped to pack in at least 150,000 spectators. He had the health commissioner personally on hand with tAvelve doctors, 33 nurses and four ambulances to succour those Avho might be overcome by the spectacle. Thousands of German-Ameriean and SAvedish-American chorus singers paid vocal tribute to the publisher (and “American First” Thompson. Five hundred thousand Polish-American citizens protested against the reception, on the ground that Hearst policies contributed to international misunderstandings, but “Big Bill” paid no heed to them.

Plans for making Hearst the city’s honoured guest Avere started after a reporter for one of the Hearst papers paved the Avay by having resolutions passed by the city council and the Board of County Commissioners. Mayor Thompson Avent into action. His office became a mailing bureau Avhich sent forth 80,000 “invitations” asking as many citizens to become members of his reception committee and join in the parade Avith bunting-covered motor cars. The item for paying for 200 professional musicians, avlio demanded 11.000 dollars for their work, was referred to a list of 100 contractors. When they' were slow at taking the hint, the head of the Board of Public Improvements summoned them to his office, and the matter was soon arranged. The mayor Avas righteously indignant because the stadium Avas only half filled for the reception programme. He promised an inquiry to discover Avho failed the mayor in his hour of need. The pictures of the attendance appeared in the Chicago morning papers under the caption “Patriotic Demonstration Jams Huge Soldier Field,” Henrst’s “Herald and Examiner” showed a dense croAvd along one side of the stadium. The picture carried by the Chicago “Tribune” shoAved the other side of the field virtually empty. - “Greatest Living American.” Thousands of persons so unpatriotic that they wanted to get Avhere they were going tried to break through the long procession, but Avere driven back by the 1400 policemen. The only times the parade halted aams when Hearst, as one great American to another, stopped at Lincoln Park to lay a Avreath at the statute of Abraham Lincoln, and at Washington Park to do the same for George Washington. Tt was only a short \\ T hile later, after the parade ended at the stadium, that Thompson said: “Mr Hearst is the greatest living American to-day.” The “Tribune” editorially commented before the reception that “the only competition to-day’s big shoAV Avill have is offered by the whale on the soap factory lot. The citizenry may take its choice. The only advantage the Avhale lias as a- slioav is that it is protectively pickled, and might be preferred by anyone sensitive that way.”’ Hearst reception in San Francisco, although lavishly heralded in his neAvspapers, avps a somewhat disappointing affair for the organisers, but the publisher Avas again Avelcomed as the greatest living American.” Tn Los Angeles be gathered the city’s notables around a banquet table. Tavo thousand persons, some of Avhom paid a sovereign to hear the story, and others who substituted for those Avho paid, and bad unexpected toothaches or appointments, Avere present. Before Hearst took hip place befbre the radiomicronbones so that a palpitating public might hear his story gratis, ho was introduced rather completely. “We all lovf* von. William Rnndolnh Hearst,” said Louis B: Mayer, of the j

Metro-Goldwyn Mayer studios, with gestures to lend conviction. Hearst is affiliated with the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer organisation. The Los Angeles “Times” refused to take the Hearst homecoming seriously. It carried a. cartoon on its front page, depicting Hearst eating off a mantel at his banquet because of a sore spot inflicted by I ranee s boot, which would not permit him t osit comfortably, in an earlier eriitorial, the “Times” said: “William Randolph Hearst, carrying his newspaper readers on a new all time endurance record, on Tuesday eclipsed a mark of 24 years’ standing when his own name appeared 41 times on one page of his local morning paper, the ‘Examiner’. In 1906, when Hearst was running for Governor of New York, he achieved the then high mark of mentioning himself by name 37 time on one page in the same newspaper. Mr Hearst is favourably compared to Lincoln, Washington, Cleveland and Rpesevelt, and proclaimed to be the ‘greatest living American. Why drag in so limiting a word as ‘Living?’ In the meantime, the campaign to sell common stocks in the Hearst newspaper eontines. “Mischievous Episode.” The “Christian Century,” one of America’s foremost undenominational publications, said: “The incredible stupidity of some French officials has led to as humiliating and mischievous an episode as American life has iecently experienced. William Randolph Hearst, who had almost disappeared from our political landscape as a figure of any personal importance, suddenly emerges as a popular hero. Bands blare, flags wave, movie cameras grind, radio microphones send his words and the words of welcoming politicians broadcast. Intelligent Arr\eiicans will be tempted to dismiss it all as an artificially contrived publicity stunt. But it is much more. It is a serious and evilly inspired attempt to induce the masses in our cities still further to "oppose any American policy looking toward the establishment of international co-operation and peace. Mr Hearst is being paraded as a super-patriot. Extravagant tributes to his supposed valour when Confronted by foreign chicanery are scattered everywhere. The whole business is being pointed especially at the the foreign-born, or those of recent foreign extraction. To these, whose ideas of the purpose and outlook of American citizenship are still in the making, this glorification of Heairst is meant to say, Here is the man whom this country delights to honour. Here is the man who represents' the noblest traditions of Americanism.’ ”