fc
lishes many columns of advertising
and still loses nearly $1,000 a day.
, I am confident that not far from
90 per cent of the expense of run
ning the Record-Herald, aside from
that fool interest on bonds,, is due to
the fact that it publishes advertising.
I say, with thorough understanding
of the situation, that the real troubled
with Chicago right now is that it has
no free press that the newspapers
cannot help being controlled in some
degree by loop advertisers so long as
they depend upon loop advertisers for
a living.
They cannot represent the people
of Chicago and their advertising
patrons at the same time; and the
interests of the people and the .ad
vertisers are not identical.
The papers all carry big advertising
of the Chicago Telephone Co.', the
Commonwealth Edison and, other
public service corporations. Can the
papers represent the interests of
both the privately-owned public ser
vice corporations and .he people
whom those corporations serve and
gouge? ,
How much of the- silence of the
newspapers on the proposed deal to
have the 'phone trust grab the Au
tomatic 'phone planf and establish
an absolute 'phone monopoly in Chi
cago is due to the heavy advertising
in the newspapers by the Chicago
Telephone Co.?
"If the newspapers' were free Chi
cago could easily have municipal tele
phone service wtih a 'phone in every
home and service at a penny a call.
' The people damn the mayor, they
damn the aldermen, they damn other
public servants and yet how can
any public servants honestly serve
the public without offending special
and selfish interests and getting in
bad with newspapers that serve those
interests?
Voters get their prejudices against
public officials through what they
fead in the newspapers, and public
servants are afraid of the news
papers. " ' '
I don't believe Mayor Harrison
permitted the police department to'be
used against workers in strikes be
cause he wanted to, but rather be
cause the newspapers created a sen
timent in favor of employers and
against employes. That is true of
many other public officials.
In saying this, J don't mean that
newspaper publishers ta&e the stand
they da out of sheer wickedness. On
the contrary, I believe it is because
the newspapers are so dependent
upon advertisers that they dare not
pffend them; and the newspaper gov
ernment Is government of the many
by the few, in the interest of money
rather than of humanity.
I think newspaper publishers woukl
like to be free; and they wHl be free
only when the people understand the
situation and make them free. They
will be free only when the power to
support or kill them is in the hands
of the people, rather than in the
hands of the advertisers.
There is another angle to the sit
uation I believe that some of the big
advertisers would rather kill the
Tribune than the Record-Herald, but
the Tribune has such a big circula
tion that they can't do it I shall dis
cuss this angle in another story.
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SAYINGS OF MR. MOUSE
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