Imperial Hearst, a Social Biography

111IjiifnI . #111 m I :! tf f im From the collection of the 7 n m o PreTinger a Uibraryi San Francisco, California 2006 THE MODERN LIBRARY OF THE WORLD'S BEST BOOKS IMPERIAL HEARST A SOCIAL BIOGRAPHY The publishers will be pleased to send, upon request, an illustrated folder setting forth the purpose and scope of THE MODERN LIBRARY, and listing each volume in the series. Every reader of booths will find titles he has been looking for, handsomely printed, in unabridged editions, and at an unusually low price. IMPERIAL HEARS A SOCIAL BIOGRAPHY BY FERDINAND LUNDBERG WITH A PREFACE BY DR. CHARLES A . BEARD THE MODERN LIBRARY NEW YORK Copyright, 1936, by FERDINAND LUNDBERG H THE MODERN LIBRARY IS PUBLISHED BY RANDOM HOUSE, INC. BENNETT A. CERF . DONALD S. KLOPFER ROBERT K. HAAS (^Manufactured in the United States of America Printed by Pohgraphic Company of America Paper t>y Richard Bauer & Co. Bound by H. Wolff End steels designed by Rockwell Kent FERDINAND LUNDBERG (1902) A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR OF "IMPERIAL HEARST" Ferdinand Lundberg was born in Chicago in 1902 of Norwegian and Swedish parentage, and was educated in the public schools there, in Crane College, Chicago, 111., New York University and Columbia University. He began newspaper work in 1924 as a "leg man" on the Chicago Journal, published by John Eastman, who had been Hearst's first business manager in Chicago. He learned something of the Hearst method from his work on the Journal and the necessity to compete with reporters on the Hearst papers. Later he was assigned to the State's Attorney's office during the heyday of Capone, O'Bannion and other Chicago gang leaders, working in the newspaper milieu depicted by Hecht and MacArthur in The Front Page. In 1926 Mr. Lundberg left what he calls "this turmoil" to join the staff of the United Press and was transferred to New York in April of 1927. He covered the take-offs of Lindbergh, Byrd and Chamberlain. Toward the end of 1927 he joined the Wall Street staff of the New York Herald Tribune. He was covering the Stock Exchange during the crash of 1929 and wrote all the front-page stories of that debacle, and attended all of the "emergency" banker- press conferences throughout 1931-33. In June of 1934 he resigned from the Herald Tribune. Mr. Lundberg began a thorough research into the career of Hearst. To support himself he wrote magazine articles and did correspondence for several European publications. He was aided in his Hearst research by several well-known public men and by important organizations, some of which turned over private docu- ments to him. TO HEYWOOD BROUN AND THE AMERICAN NEWSPAPER GUILD A PREFACE and a Farewell to William Randolph Hearst RANDOLPH HEARST has passed the ten. he stands WILLIAMmark of three score years and Even now within the shadow that in due course enshrouds all mortals. Yet a few years and he too will come to that judgment meted out to things earthly and human. Then his stocks, bonds, and titles to castles, es- tates, and mines, his hirelings, servitors, beneficiaries, and banker- sponsors will avail as naught. But before he goes to face that verdict, it is fitting and proper that he should receive the judgment of contemporaries on this side the of documentation. It is also that judgment experience and fitting this judgment should be rendered to his heirs and legatees into whose hands the Hearst heritage will soon pass, under whose jurisdiction the Hearst empire will doubtless dissolve and crumble into ruins. For the judgment on the creator of this aggregation of wealth, terror, and ambition will be the verdict of the American nation upon its or least of that tormentor, at part of the nation interested in the pres- ervation of those simple decencies without which no people can endure. Summarily, what is this judgment of contemporaries in no way fearing or beholden to William Randolph Hearst? It is that Hearst, despite all the uproar he has made and all the power he wields, is a colossal failure and now holds in his hands the dust and ashes of de- feat. He will depart loved by few and respected by none whose respect is worthy of respect. When the cold sneer of command at last fades from his face, none will be proud to do honor to his memory. What is the supporting evidence for this judgment? The first is the at the popular verdict polls. In early manhood vii had ambitions. Hearst political He wanted to be the governor of a great state, and there can scarcely be any doubt that he regarded this as a stepping stone to the Presidency of the United States. In this for offered quest political power Hearst himself to the citizens of New York as the candidate for governor in 1906, and he received their sentence of banishment in the autumn of that year. It was a smashing repudiation. Never afterward was he able to set foot in the path that leads to the White House. The second piece of evidence supporting the judgment of ostracism and oblivion for Hearst was provided by the actions of the superintendents of American schools assembled in convention at St. Louis in February, 1936. For years the Hearst papers, with characteristic disregard for truth, had been attacking leaders in American education such men as Professor Charles H. Judd and President Hutch- ins, of Chicago University, President Chase, of New York Univer- sity, and President Graham, of North Carolina University. Hearst had been calling them communists and enemies of the American Re- public. He had fostered "red scares" and made drives on the public schools, alleging that they were centers of disloyalty and sedition. Men favoring Hearst's methods went to the convention of superintendents at Atlantic City in 1935, with a view to winning educational endorsement of the Hearst "campaign." It was thought that teachers into the thus were "timid" and could be easily herded Hearst camp adding moral strength to Hearst sensationalism, and increasing the circulation of the yellow press. With the deadly swiftness of the lightning's flash, teachers denounced Hearst at Atlantic City, and sent his henchmen scurrying for cover. Accustomed to raking the underworld and intimidating Hearst there his first encounter with an or- political gangsters, had traditions of ganization of men and women trained in the nobler American life, and found out what they thought of him. At St. a Louis the next year the superintendents, with scarcely dissenting voice, condemned two of Hearst's "pet" projects in unmeasured terms. They denounced the "red-rider" attached to school appropria- tions in the District of Columbia. They denounced the methods em- ployed to OU;K from the office of Commissioner of Education in Mas- sachusetts, Dr. Payson Smith, outspoken opponent of legislation branding teachers as unfaithful and compelling them to take oaths did Hearst mention- of loyalty. The superintendents not dignify by his of ing his name, but they put the finishing touches to hope dom- and inating education in the United States by threats, sensationalism, terrorism. Their verdict is that rendered against him years ago by Charles W. Eliot the verdict of ostracism and oblivion. The third piece of supporting evidence for the judgment on Hearst is his own record, revealed in its broad outlines by the documentation of Mr. Lundberg's pages. We have only to compare it with the record of men who command the esteem of the American nation such as Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Emerson to discover the long-term and final verdict of this nation on William Randolph Hearst. This is not to say that Mr. Lundberg has told "the whole story." To tell the whole story of any man like Hearst is an achievement beyond human powers. Owing to the shadowy and complicated nature of Hearst's operations, the exact truth in many particular instances is difficult to unearth. This is not to say that Hearst possesses no virtues. Nero and Caligula had virtues. It is to say that enough authentic and indubitable facts are pre- sented in the following pages to show what manner of man Hearst has been and still is to disclose his ambitions, his conceptions of decency, his methods, his standards of public morals, his lack of rev- erence for truth and character, his tastes, the means he employs to attain his ends, his treatment of his own servitors, the ramifications of his economic greed, the sum and substance of his caretr. Mr. Lundberg destroys William Randolph Hearst by producing the cold, brute facts of the record. It is impossible to believe that any person literate enough to read Mr. Lundberg's pages can come to any other verdict than that of ostracism and oblivion for Hearst. Perhaps a few who stand in dread of him or desire to use him for their purposes may express no judgment publicly now. But unless we are to believe in the progressive degradation of the American nation, we are bound to believe that Hearst's fate is ostracism by decency in life, and oblivion in death. Odors of his personality may linger for a time until his estate is divided and his journalistic empire is dissolved; but they will soon evaporate in the sunlight of a purer national life. Even school boys thousands scorn his cankered and girls by the now aged image and heart. No doubt, Hearst, while he lives, and his legatees, until his em- is continue to in life.

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