Hearst v. Hoover

Publisher William Randolph Hearst, as everyone knows, possesses 28 U. S. newspapers. His public is composed, he slogans, of 20 million people -"People Who Think." Whenever he is moved to expound his personal views in public, all he needs to do is notify his nearest editor and the land will soon be flooded with pungent paragraphs over the cramped, irregular, sharp-slanting Hearst signature.

Crossing the continent last fortnight from California -to join Mrs. Hearst in Manhattan, as he does at least once each year (wedding anniversary) -Mr. Hearst felt a public message stirring within him. President Hoover had just gone to Manhattan and addressed the Associated Press on the subject of crime and law enforcement (TIME, April 29). In the presidential reasoning, Publisher Hearst thought he detected flaws. Himself the holder of many an A. P. franchise, he proposed to tear apart and answer what President Hoover had said to the assembled editors and publishers.

For reasons best known to himself, Mr. Hearst did not telegraph en route to his nearest editor (Omaha News-Bee). Nor could he contain himself until he reached the next-nearest Hearst city, Chicago. Instead, he arranged to be met in Kansas City by a representative of that city's daily Star, a most independent un-Hearstlike newspaper. Into the Star man's hands Mr. Hearst delivered a 3,000 word statement entitled: "We Need Laws We can Respect." He requested the Star man explicitly to see that the Star should publish the statement in full.

Faithfully, the Star man transmitted to his chief the Hearst request. Shrewdly, the Star chief smelled a large, shadowy, Hearstlike rat. He saw to it that the Star did not print the Hearst statement as Mr. Hearst had planned. It required a long-distance call from Mr. Hearst's secretary in Chicago before the Star printed the Hearst statement at all. Then the Star chopped the thing up and printed about one-third of it on page 17, next to a comic strip.

That was enough, however, for Hearst purposes. Last week the full statement was spread across the U. S. in the Hearst papers and in paid advertisements in other papers under the byline: "William Randolph Hearst in the Kansas City Star."

Irritated, General Manager George B. Longan of the Star in turn issued a statement. In part, he said: "The Star is not concerned over Mr. Hearst's views. . . . What we objected to was the reprinting of an article that gave the appearance of being an editorial written for the Star by Mr. Hearst. Also on account of the way in which it was used it indicated that the Star had changed its attitude on law enforcement."

"Blank Cartridge." The subject matter of the Hearst statement seemed to explain why its author had hitched his wagon to the distinguished Kansas City Star. Publisher Hearst felt deeply that "We Need Laws We Can Respect." He also realized that people, whether they think or not, are most likely to respect public statements when they read them in a newspaper they can respect. Mr. Hearst's own press is historically, incurably "yellow."

"President Hoover's address." began Mr. Hearst, ". . . was a shot in the air -a blank cartridge fired against a blank wall.

"Everybody knows that the laws ought to be enforced.

"Everybody knows that the President ought to enforce the laws.

. . . "Everybody knows that the laws ought to be respected. . . .

"But," he went on, "occasionally there are laws which cannot be respected, no matter how they are observed by good citizens. . . ."

Next came arraignment of flask-toting, whiskey-smuggling Congressmen, of bribe-rotted enforcement officers; praise for the Spirit of Liberty. The Hoover logic was then trapped and chided. The President had ascribed "high moral instincts" to the People in one breath, and in the next had complained that respect for law was fading from their sensibilities. The President had complained of increased crime but had not perceived that the drastic Jones (Five & Ten) Act, by sending up liquor prices and making convictions fewer, would cause the liquor trade to finance the underworld more handsomely than ever.

Mr. Hearst accompanied his blows* with many a spellbinding flourish, gallant references to women, a few vivid phrases ("Cossack crew of enforcement officers," "bonehead Drys and bullhead Wets"). His conclusion was a concentrated attack upon the Jones Act, and this bit of advice from potent Publisher William Randolph Hearst:

"All [evil effects of the Jones Act] could be avoided if the party in power would remember that it was elected on the Republican ticket, and not on the prohibition ticket. .

* Hearst papers supported the Hoover candidacy, for two reasons: 1) prosperity; 2) personal animosity between the Messrs. Hearst and Smith.