Chapter LV: The Press and Jack London

I once had the pleasure of hearing Jack London express his opinion of American Journalism; it was a picturesque and vivid experience, a sort of verbal aurora borealis. Not wishing to trust to my memory of the incidents, I write to Mrs. London, and she sends me a huge scrap-book, the journalistic adventures of Jack London during the year 1906. I open it, and the first thing I come upon is a clipping from the “St. Louis Post-Dispatch,” with a picture of Mrs. London which is not Mrs. London! Then, a couple of pages on, a clipping from the “New Haven Palladium,” with a picture of Jack London which is not Jack London!

They just take any old picture, you understand, and slap your name under it. I have seen Jack London’s picture serving for me, and I have seen my own picture serving for a vaudeville actor. As I write, the “Los Angeles Times” comes to my desk, with a scare-headline all the way across the page: “BRITAIN DEFIES UNION LABOR THREAT OF REVOLUTION.” It appears that the miners are preparing a general strike, and the “Los Angeles Times,” wishing to make them odious, publishes on its front page a large portrait, with this caption: “TRYING TO THROW BRITAIN OFF BALANCE. Robert Smillie, Brains of the Triple Alliance of Powerful Labor Unions, Seeking Social and Economic Revolution in the United Kingdom.” The portrait shows a foreign-looking individual with straggly beard and tousled hair, wearing a Russian blouse. It is Abram Krylenko, commander-in-chief of the Russian Bolshevist armies! If you are near a library you may find the picture in the “Outlook,” Vol. 118, p. 254; or in the “Independent,” Vol. 93, p. 405; or in the “Metropolitan Magazine” for October, 1919. A picture of Smillie appears in “Current Opinion” for August, 1919—an entirely conventional-looking Englishman!

To return to Jack London: This was the year that Charmian and Jack got married. It was in Chicago, and the Hearst paper of that city reported it in this chaste fashion:

JACK LONDON WINS IN BATTLE FOR A BRIDE.

Messenger-boys, Telephones, Korean Valet, Political Influence,
Pleadings, Many Explanations, and a Special Dispensation Finally Won a
Marriage License on Sunday for Jack London.

And then next day the Hearst reporters discovered that this marriage was not legal; Jack was liable to three years in jail; so, as a matter of precaution, he was going to be married in every state in the Union! All over the country this story was telegraphed; such trifling with a sacred institution displeased certain women’s clubs in Iowa, which canceled their engagements to hear Jack London lecture! Returning to his home after these excitements, I find Jack being interviewed by the “Oakland Herald.”

That report was all the imagination of the Chicago reporters who were
scooped on the wedding story. There was nothing in that at all.

Later on Jack took another trip to the East, and delivered his famous address, “Revolution,” which you may find in his volume “Revolution and Other Essays.” He is describing the feelings of a Colorado workingman under the régime of the militia general, Sherman Bell, whose orders were, “To hell with the Constitution.” Says London:

Nor does the Constitution of the United States appear so glorious and
constitutional to the workingman who has experienced a bull pen or
been unconstitutionally deported from Colorado. Nor are this
particular workingman’s hurt feelings soothed by reading in the
newspapers that both the bull pen and the deportation were
preeminently just, legal, and constitutional. “To hell, then, with the
Constitution,” says he, and another revolutionist has been made—by the
capitalist class.

And next morning here comes the “New York Times,” not quite saying that Jack said “To hell with the Constitution,” but carefully implying it; which dishonesty, of course, takes wings, and from one end of the country to the other Americans read that Jack London has said, “To hell with the Constitution.” Jack is on his way home, and cannot answer; here am I, as vice-president of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, under whose auspices the meeting had been held, writing to the “Times” to call attention to the injustice it has done to a great American novelist. The “Times” puts my letter under the title:

THE CALL OF THE WILD

Jack London Puts an “If” in the Condemned Constitution.

And here is the “New York Evening Sun,” denouncing Jack; here is the “Chicago Inter-Ocean,” in an editorial:

If Jack London speaks only for himself, he is either a cheap seeker
after notoriety or a pestilential agitator. If the latter, he is more
dangerous than the agitators whose fulminations led to the
assassination of President McKinley, and assassination is as likely to
follow his diatribes.

Our laws prevent the importation of foreign Anarchists. Are the laws
and public sentiment not strong enough to suppress the exploiter of
sensationalism who preaches treason to the flag and war on the
Government?

And here is the “Rochester Post Express,” with the headline: “A LITERARY ANARCHIST.” Here is the “Milwaukee Sentinel”: “LONDON BELCHES MORE FIRE.” Here is the “Chicago Inter-Ocean”: “ASSASSINATION PET JOY OF MR. LONDON.”

And here are various public libraries, rushing to defend our imperiled institutions by barring the books of Jack London from their shelves: Derby, Connecticut; Des Moines, Iowa; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And here is Jack, writing to Gaylord Wilshire: “Thanks for the enclosures. You bet they amuse me! I leave it to you if my situation isn’t amusing!” In a letter to me, Mrs. London explains this amusement: “Down went his royalties!” And she adds:

Several years ago Jack learned, from one newspaper man and another,
what he had often suspected—that the standing instructions in
practically every newspaper office on the Pacific Coast were to give
Jack London the worst of it whenever possible. Of course this meant no
matter what the occasion, whether slamming his work, or wilfully
misrepresenting his personal actions. And they only subsided, as I
have said above, when they adjudged he had a bank account, and
therefore must needs be less radical.

This trick played upon Jack London is a favorite one with our newspapers—to take some quotation, and put it in the mouth of the quoter. What a sordid man is William Shakespeare; he said: “Put money in thy purse!” What a vainglorious man is the apostle Matthew; he said: “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me!” What a violent man is James H. Maurer, president of the Pennsylvania Federation of Labor; he said: “Down with the Stars and Stripes!”

Mr. Maurer came to New York to tell the people about the state constabulary, a public strike-breaking agency organized by the big capitalists of his state. The big capitalists of New York wanted the same thing, and the big newspapers of New York were boosting for it, and of course ridiculing and slandering all who opposed it. At the Washington Irving High School, on April 19, 1916, Mr. Maurer addressed a public meeting and read a passage from his book, “The American Cossack.” The incident he read was a funeral; a Spanish war-veteran had died during the miners’ strike in Westmoreland County, and was being buried by the striking miners with military honors. Members of the state constabulary came riding up. They objected to these lousy strikers using the American flag, and ordered that the flag be lowered. The strikers refused, whereupon the Cossacks threatened to shoot unless the flag was lowered and furled. Maurer quoted them: “Down with the Stars and Stripes!” So next day the newspapers reported Maurer as saying, “Down with the Stars and Stripes!” The “New York Times” went farther yet, and reported him as saying, “To hell with the Stars and Stripes!” I quote Maurer’s letter:

Mayor Mitchel of New York ordered the school-board to investigate
these charges at once and they did so. At the hearing twelve witnesses
were heard. Eleven swore that I said nothing of the kind and repeated
what I did say. One, a “New York Sun” reporter by the name of Lester
S. Walbridge, contended that I had said, “Down with the Stars and
Stripes!” but admitted that there had been much cheering at the time
and that he did not catch all that I said. Three others wrote and
telegraphed their testimony, all saying that I said nothing of the
kind. Some of the witnesses were people favorable to the State Police.
The verdict of the School-board was to the effect that I said nothing
of the kind, but had simply told my audience what the State Police had
said; that it was the State Police who said, “Down with the Stars and
Stripes,” and not Mr. Maurer. A clear vindication.

The day the story first appeared in the New York papers, charging me
with the flag slander, the story was used to stampede the New York
senators into voting for the State Police Bill then pending, and it
worked. Although I was vindicated, the story is still used; every now
and then someone editorializes about it.

In my effort to verify this story, I write to a reporter who was on the job at this time. He answers:

As a matter of fact all the reporters were out getting a drink when
Maurer spoke, and they took their version of what he said from the
Real Estate Association’s provocateurs at the meeting.

In connection with this Maurer episode, there is a curious story which should be told. You remember “Collier’s Weekly,” a magazine “run on a personal basis,” and the many young writers who had been debauched by “Collier” prosperity. One of these writers was Richard Harding Davis, and you would have to hunt a long time to find a more perfect incarnation of capitalist prosperity and success in literature. It happened that Davis was at his country home when he read in the “New York Times” that Maurer had said, “To hell with the Stars and Stripes!” Davis flew into a rage, and drafted a telegram to the mayor of New York, calling upon him to use the power of the government to put down these preachers of sedition. He went to the telephone to dictate the message, and before he was half-way through, fell dead of an apoplectic stroke!

Ten years ago I produced in California a one-act play called “The Indignant Subscriber.” The editor of a great newspaper is found walking on the shore of an imaginary lake. A stranger invites him for a row in a boat—the “boat” consisting of two chairs and a board tied together, the “oars” being brooms. The stranger rows the editor out into the middle of the lake, and then announces himself as the Indignant Subscriber. “For twenty-five years,” he says, “I have listened helplessly, while you set forth your views on every subject under the sun. Now for once I mean to tell you my views on one subject—yourself!” So he speaks his mind, and at the end upsets the boat and swims away, leaving the editor floundering in the water.

Now I am the Indignant Subscriber, who has been taking the “New York Times” for twenty-five years. I propose to give the “Times” a taste of its own medicine—by writing some headlines and letting the “Times” see just how it feels. Here goes:

“NEW YORK TIMES” KILLS FAVORITE AUTHOR

Death of R. H. Davis Caused by Reporter Seeking High-ball

_Lie Occasions Fatal Shock_

Reads “Times” Incitement, Drops Dead in Home

Now, how’s that?