The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND THURSDAY. SEPTEMBER 4, 1930 THE YELLOW KID

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1068, 4 September 1930, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND THURSDAY. SEPTEMBER 4, 1930 THE YELLOW KID

THERE must be something unusual about a multi-millionaire ■who can enjoy Ihe notoriety of having been diplomatically kicked out of a country which worships ricli tourists, ’1 his has been the experience of Mr. William Randolph Hearst, who was expelled from Prance the other day, and such is the man. Throughout a singular career he has revelled in sensationalism and sought the centre of the stage. And today, in liis sixtyseventh year, he is chuckling over the publicity thrust upon him by an artistic nation that lias not yet adopted yellow journalism. Mr. Hearst does not even feel sore over his polite expulsion from Paris because of the general hostility of his chain of American newspapers toward France. lie could have remained a boulevardier a little longer, hut, the generous fellow preferred not to endanger the French nation. “America had saved France during the war and I would save it again by leaving.” That was his delighted comment on what to him would he a welcome incident, and when he made it doubtless he foresaw a range of headlines, tall as the Rockies and more conspicuous, running across three thousand miles of paper from New York to San Francisco. What a story for his fifteen million readers, what a “scoop” for a journalist whose axiom is that “there is no substitute for circulation”! Unfortunately for the vanity of the man —liis megalomania is as great and as turgid as the Mississippi—-the majority of his own countrymen will not become hysterical over the magnanimous saving of France. They do not like him even though they buy his newspapers. There may be cinema newsreels and movietones about it, hut there will he no thrilling deluge of ticker-tape and confetti in Broadway as a proud welcome on his return to the land of the free. After all, the Parisian episode is scarcely comparable to the “magnificent saving of the Tahiti’s passengers in a vast uncharted sea.” There is a lot of fun to he got out of frantic hero-worship, but there is a limit even to American enthusiasm.

Almost two years ago Mr. Hearst took the blame lor the arrest of a Paris representative of his newspapers, who had secured and published the text of the Anglo-French naval agreement. It was explained subsequently that the story as to Mr. Hearst having handed the document to the correspondent was characteristically untrue, hut it at least put the millionaire journalist in the limelight. That was a good thing for Sir. Hearst, although it annoyed, without endangering, the French nation. Ever since the Hearst newspapers have girded at France. The mind of the man himself on international questions is as unstable, as water. But it always runs in the end to a sea of profit. Sometime ago he not only became an ardent friend of England ancl a pleader fox* the promotion of Anglo-American friendship, but paid a great sum to become an English “baron.” ITc purchased a six-hundred-years-old castle in Wales in order to enjoy something that could not be bought in America. “Taffy” Hearst, however, still is an American, full of American gixile. It is right that he should cling to the characteristics of his country. It has given him fortune although, so far, it has withheld fame. His favourite newspaper is the one that founded liis career and enormous wealth in journalism—the “San Francisco Examiner.” It yields a net annual profit of £350,000. The owner’s millionaire father bought it for his heir when it seemed to he a hopeless derelict. Young Hearst was then only twentyfour years of age. Within three months he made it pay and gave it a rank growth. It lias been said that he was the first newspaper owner to introduce “a sort of typographical violence into the make-up.” Then lie began to play with printing presses. He made them whirr in a score of cities. Six days a week were xxot enough for him. He captured the Sabbath Day, established Sunday journals, and commanded his highly-paid writers and specialists to concentrate on “crime and underwear.” This was called “woman appeal.” A famous French comedienne was interviewed and audaciously photographed in her “nightie.” This was the stuff for America. Dollars poured in, papers gushed out. Eater, New York went wild over the first coloured comic for Young America. It was named the Yellow Kid. The title has become a world-wide nickname for the Hearst species of journalism. In every way the creator of the Yellow Kid has explored the farthest regions of sensation and vulgarity. The exploration has paid, but it has not given the explorer fame. Hence his enjoyment of a notorious expulsion. In time Mr. Hearst will have a wonderful funeral. And the least of men nxay enjoy “a hit of a pageant going to the grave.”