N of the Newspapers EWSPAPERS have come in for much scolding by certain public men. La Follette, in his long talk in February to the publishers at Philadelphia, and the Mayor of New York City, in a letter to Governor Dix of New York concerning a recent celebrated case, have joined in calling the newspapers sensational and untrustworthy. With the history of newspaper development, Will Irwin's series of articles dealt fully and fairly. Readers of COLLIER's are familiar with these articles. What follows is a digest of the opinion of fifteen public men, who are as well qualified to judge the efficiency and fairness of newspapers as any similar number of Americans. Probably no other group has been more quoted and written about in the newspapers of this generation. I Joseph G. Cannon Former Speaker of the House of Representatives AM not fitted by my early environment or by my activities to talk about the newspapers. I have made mistakes, but I suppose if I were to live my life over again in the same circumstances, I should make the same mistakes. So I regret nothing. Mme. Roland, I believe it was, who said: "The more I see of men, the better I like dogs." Sometimes, when I get very close to men, when I get very close to myself, I do not like what I see there. The world is made up of anarchists, socialists, business men, all sorts, and yet we must remember that we are all together, that we all belong in this little world. Each man's business and occupation is different from every other man's, and that determines the way he thinks and feels. It gives me no satisfaction to punish an enemy. If I had absolute power, I would not punish the man I think has done me wrong. You probably know that COLLIER'S WEEKLY and I are not on friendly terms. Sometimes I have felt violently about and yet I know that in the prosecution of its business COLLIER'S must do as it does. I George E. Chamberlain United States Senator from Oregon THINK the newspapers have, editorially, almost entirely lost their influence, for the people no longer feel that editorial opinion is fearless, untrammeled, fair, and truthful as they did in the days of Greeley. I have read a well-known paper in my State for thirty years, but it never affected my opinions, for I felt it was not free, unprejudiced, and fair. To a less degree, the news columns are also losing their effect upon the people because of loss of confidence in the correctness and honesty of the news. I do not say that the people are justified in losing their confidence in the newspapers, but I think it is a fact that they are. In my own political career, three-fourths of the newspapers have always opposed me, but they seem to have wielded little influence. The people have a way of finding out the fair sheet, and somehow that fair sheet exerts an influence out of all proportion to its circulation. The influence formerly exerted by the newspapers is now being wielded by the magazines. It is that the people are demanding unbiased newspapers, and this fact will create many more good newspapers in the immediate future. I B. R. Tillman United States Senator from South Carolina F THE newspaper does not give correct information, it betrays the people. Those papers which color or suppress the news are prostitutes, and, fortunately, the people know it. A year ago, in my State, there were three candidates for Governor in the field. One of them was bitterly attacked by nearly every newspaper in the State, both daily and weekly, but this touched the sympathy of the people, and he was elected. When I ran for Governor twenty years ago, I was elected, with every daily paper with the exception of four, against me, and with all the weeklies against me except ten or twelve. Of course, the newspapers are losing their influence, because nine-tenths of them act in such a way as to destroy the public's confidence in them. Why, I have given up long ago any hope of ever having my speeches reported honestly, although the newspaper men might always refer for correctness to the Congressional Record. And yet many of these newspaper men are my friends. B Charles W. Eliot Former President of Harvard University Y FAR the worst aspect of the newspaper profession is that it is not free. No man ought to select for a life work an occupation in which he would be likely to have very little freedom. To an educated man especially this ought to be the greatest consideration of all. Harvard men in journalism, editors and others, have often told me that they are not free, that their opinions are largely controlled by the countinghouse. One instance was the refusal of the Boston press to publish a court verdict against a manufacturer of an adulterated article-that manufacturer being an advertiser in the newspapers. A reporter on one of the most respectable of these papers attempted to get the story in. He failed, but soon afterward the newspaper published a large advertisement by the condemned manufacturer. Patent-medicine proprietors still control the opinions of many newspapers on all subjects which could possibly affect the patent-medicine business. Widespread as this illegitimate control of news and opinion is, there is perhaps a little more freedom now than formerly in the expression of opinion. I do not think the newspaper situation will be materially improved by men of education and high character going into it as reporters or editors unless they should own the papers. The only hope is to raise the general moral standard of the newspaper proprietors. It is important that they should have a livelier sense of public responsibility. Of late years there have been notable instances of the awakening of responsibility in places where it hardly existed. The solution of this newspaper problem-of how to develop a good, free press-is to educate morally and esthetically the men who own the papers. I J. L. Bristow The suc United States Senator from Kansas HAVE frequently said that a newspaper reflects public opinion as much as it molds it. This, I believe, is true unless the newspaper is owned by some special interest and is kept up by such interest for the purpose of promoting its plans. cessful publisher, in the character of his paper, to a degree reflects the intelligence and character of the people who read his journal. He may mold opinion, but he must also meet the mental demands of his readers to do it. When there ceases to be conscience behind the paper's policies, its readers instinctively find it cut. For a newspaper to have permanent weight and influence, it must have both conscience and mental superiority. The conditions that make possible the great success that has attended the development of newspapers in our country have invited men of the highest ability to enter that field, both as a business and as a profession. This has, of course, largely contributed toward making the press the potent element that it is in our industrial and intellectual development. MY William J. Gaynor Mayor of New York City Y ESTIMATE of the press throughout the country is high. The cities of the West and South have a splendid press. Even the press of Chicago is eventempered and fair. But, in my belief, journalism in the city of New York has reached the lowest depth ever known in the world. Of course, this does not apply to all of our New York newspapers. Some of them. are fine. Some, on the other hand, are infamous. Men read them, but do not take them home. They throw them in the gutter. I do not see what a circulation like that is good for to advertisers. Do the New York newspapers give the news without suppressing or shading? Most of them do not. They not only suppress and shade, but they will take a thing and cut sentences out of it so as actually to construct a forged utterance. They will put in quotation marks a thing you never said. They will invent things you never said. Do the political aspirations of their owners determine their course? Most certainly. The newspaper proprietor with political aspirations and a bad heart becomes a mere cutthroat and assassin. Does advertising affect newspapers as public organs? Yes. There are certain large concerns here in this city who do large advertising in certain newspapers. You could not get a thing derogatory to them published in these newspapers, not even that there was a suicide in their places. Are the newspapers accurate? That almost makes me laugh. In the newspapers to which I refer, I never see anything about myself-for instance, of my doings ---which is accurate or even half true. I would like to see the newspapers publish the news just as it is and not allow an adjective or an opinion in their news columns. I would like to see them tell the truth. It is true that there are a large number of readers in the city of New York that want a newspaper with lascivious pictures, brutal cuts of prize fighters, and lies and exaggerations of all kinds, and scandal. But what good is such a newspaper to anybody? It enriches the proprietor, and that is all. But what a seared conscience and adamantine heart he must have to enrich himself in that way! At the time they had the Reno prize fight, the question came up of the exhibition of the pictures of that fight in the theatres in New York. It was found that there was no law by which such exhibitions could be prevented. One newspaper publisher denounced us day by day for not stopping them. That same newspaper proprietor in another city hired a negro and a white man, while the fight was going on at Reno and for several days thereafter, to go through all the motions of the fight to a street crowd in front of his newspaper establishment, and here in New York he printed for weeks, day by day, all the photographs of that fight and all the imaginary pictures, however disgusting, he could get up about it. And yet he led the pack in denouncing the Mayor of New York City because that Mayor would not issue a ukase that such pictures could not be shown in New York City; and some clergymen and good people backed him. I had a shrewd notion all the while that the public did not care two cents about the pictures and that there would be no craze about them, and it turned out just that way. They never became anything of a feature in the theatres or in the movingpicture shows. The result of the base and heartless cruelty of some of these infamous newspapers is frightful. The number of men and women in private life whose hearts they break and whom they crush is legion. The number of men in official life whose hearts and spirits and bodies are broken by them is far larger than many people ever think of. The number of political assassinations in this country from newspapers of this class is astonishing. They can set all the assassins of the community on you by their infamous pictures and abuse. Jonathan Bourne, Jr. United States Senator from Oregon HE remedy for a misrepresentative press is ex Tactly the same as the remedy for misrepresenta tive public servants. If a public servant fails to serve the general welfare, he should be recalled or refused reelection. If a newspaper fails to serve general welfare, subscribers should withdraw their support. I have contempt for men who "stop the paper" because it has injured them personally, but the utmost admiration for a community that refuses its support to a paper that persistently serves special interests as against general welfare. Such action is the only recourse the public has for its own protection, and the remedy should be fearlessly and promptly applied. TH Knute Nelson United States Senator from Minnesota HE party organ has gone by, but unfortunately the newspapers have swung to the other extreme and are not sufficiently principled. They still help greatly in our public life and general civilization, but to a less extent. They do not explain, as they formerly did, the meaning of events to the people. Greeley or Dana, or Raymond, or Medill, or the Springfield "Republican," in the old days, would really tell the people, in careful articles, the inner meaning of public events. They tried seriously to educate, instruct, expound. But now the newspapers do not seem to try to do this bigger thing. Now they seek the little, salient, startling, amusing facts. When a Senator, for instance, says a smart or clever thing on the floor of the Senate, the reporters seize upon it and put it in the newspapers, 18 со OLLIERS FOR MARCH 23, 1912 I The Actress Who Would Not Be Starred By LAURETTE TAYLOR LIKE the title you have given me except for two reasons. First, I have been a star, and, second, I hope to be a star again some day. If I refuse to be a star just at present, it is because of my experience and my hopes. My experience, though sad, is that of a good majority of those who have been starred in recent years, and my hopes are those of all very ambitious actors. If there is any difference in my case, it is that I feel very strongly the difficulty and the danger of starring; and these are so obvious that it is strange if anyone fails to see them. There is no better example than the story of the theatres that have been named after actors. Half a dozen years ago a man who had a run of good fortune took a house and named it after himself. After that he never had a real success in New York. His theatre has passed into other hands and bears a different name. An actress had a similar experience. Almost from the day her house was opened bad luck overtook her, and she has now given up the stage. These cases seem to have suggested some measure of caution. The next time the game was tried the manager prepared a hedge. He called the house Stella's Blank Theatre. Difficulties arose and the star went under a different management. Her former house is called The Blank Theatre, and she has no theatre of her own. She is an artist and is still a star; but to all appearances she is encountering the same trouble that worked against her predecessors-the difficulty of securing good star vehicles. THE HE next manager who tried the game began behind the hedge. He named the house The Blank Theatre, intending, it is said, to change the name to Jane Doe's Blank Theatre as soon as he got together enough good plays to serve as a repertory for his star. In the past two seasons she has not had a single success, and is now idle, having never played an engagement in the theatre built for her. These cases are not exceptional. The same sort of thing has happened to most of the actors who have tried to establish themselves as stars. And there is, I think, a reason. At the height of her success a popular actress once confided to a reporter the secret of it. The name of a star, she said, was like a breakfast food: unless it was in everyone's mouth, from Sandy Hook to Seattle, no one could pay for the advertising. For that reason she could not afford to appear in an "unpleasant" play, by which she meant a play that might fail to be amusing to any large part of the general public. No Ibsen, Pinero, or Shaw for her, and no American play that dealt seriously with a subject of serious significance! She couldn't even afford to appear in a small part, however enjoyable the play was as a whole. The only way to succeed was to make herself the chief feature of every performance-to THE HERE is an actress of my acquaintance who studies her parts with great intelligence. She once suggested to the author that a certain sentence be added to one of her scenes, and he added it gladly. When she spoke the sentence at rehearsal, two laughs came from the auditorium. It was the manager and the press agent. No one had ever known that they had a laugh in their systems. Before the next rehearsal the star asked the actress for her part, and penciled out the sentence. That was bad enough; but it soon appeared that she had written it into her own part-where it had no point whatever. The manager and the press agent never smiled again. The play failed, and the supporting actress was criticized because she did not "carry conviction." She did, though; but it was the star who got the sentence. Now I don't want to make out that it is merely artistic principle that has made me refuse to be that kind of a star. With me, too, it is a matter of business. There is, I know, a large public that cares most of all for the personality of an actor. People say they love John Drew because he is always so witty, and adore Maude Adams because she is always so good. If Mr. Drew were to play a man who was not witty, or Miss Adams a woman who was not good, it would, of course, argue them all the greater actors. But their public would feel defrauded. It wants to love them for themselves alone. Now, I am not objecting to this. I think I feel the power of a personality when I meet one, and there are a good many such on our stage to-day. Those of them who are fortunate, moreover, have the pick of all the best plays the world produces. For them the star game as it has been played is still good business. They satisfy audiences, and pretty generally fill theatres. Yet the game they are playing is dangerous, and is every day becoming more dangerous. The actors who trade on their mere personal appeal deal in perishable goods. It is not that they grow old and fade or get fat-though that has been known to happen. The simple fact is that in nine cases out of ten the drawing power of a personality is self-limited. The public begins by liking it, goes on to love it, and then presently adores it. No one can do more than that. And the sad fact is that very few can even keep it up. The time comes when a matinée girl reflects that it is the author, really, who is witty, and the character who is good. Then her illusions are dispelled by the idea that the person she has idolized "cannot act." She announces it with the air of intellect. Of course this isn't so. Many of our popular stars are very able actors. What the matinée intellect means is that they can't impersonate-or, rather, that they don't impersonate-and impersonation is only one of the tests of acting. Irving, Terry, Bernhardt, and Mansfield were always themselves, in much the same way real actor could help scoring in them. Within a few years every one of those five actors had been starred. One and all they failed to make good. They had considerable personality, considerable talent. As a team working together they were wonderful. Each one shone not only in himself, but by contrast with each of the others. They always seemed fresh and bright because they came to the fore one after another for a brief time only. But none of them were able to create a great part or even to make their mere personality please an audience throughout an evening. When they were stretched out so as to cover a whole performance, they were so thin that you could see holes through them everywhere. 1 T The Prideau Murder By DAVID GRAY Pictures by ARMAND BOTH MOWARD evening they sighted Boralang Peak, worked through the coral and dropped anchor as the lights of Bangyak began to glimmer from the shadow-wrapped hillside. And Gillespie Crewe still was pacing the deck by himself. By himself he had paced it for five days and for much of the nights too, so the sailors said. Loosely speaking, he had walked most of the way from Manila. Suddenly a boat from shore appeared out of the darkness, almost under the rail. The officer in the stern sheets, Anderson, came up the gangway. At the side Gillespie Crewe buttonholed him. "Tell me," he said"I am Major Crewe-how is Captain Dare getting on?" "First-rate," said Anderson heartily. "The doctor says he'll get well. They cabled you were coming," he went on, and then stopped, for Crewe had turned away and left him. He stood a moment perplexed, then went on his way for the mails. CREW REWE had fled to the rail. Relief so poignant swept him that he had to be alone. For a long time he stood gazing shoreward with unseeing eyes. An hour later he was on the little pier end with Lothrop, the post surgeon, watching the dim ship melt into a point of light as she worked her way out again through the darkness. Life seemed very good to Crewe. After all, the keenest joy is cessation of pain. The doctor confirmed the news about Dare, and now all the strain was over. He knew that his brother was going to get well and nothing else mattered. The intensity of this care-freeness and buoyancy amounted to exhilaration. The business which was his excuse for coming to Bangyak seemed trivial and far away. It was hard for him to be patient with Lothrop, who was so tense and excited about it. "Why come out here to talk, why all this mystery?" Crewe had demanded. What if one could hear through the wall of a nipa house? There was nothing in the business to be secret about. On the third of that same December, Captain John Dare, commanding officer at Bangyak, and Lieutenant F. S. Prideau had been attacked by Moros while deer shooting in the hills. Dare was wounded with a kris and was in the hospital with blood poisoning. Prideau's body had never been found. That was all there was to it. The murderers were safe in the hills, like the murderers in twenty similar cases throughout the archipelago. But Lothrop had insisted on reading elements of mystery into it. A vague danger to the post was hinted at, and he had begged that some "fearless, resourceful officer be dispatched at once." The General had sent Crewe rather because the circumstance gave him the chance to be kind to him than because he took Lothrop's letter seriously, for he knew that Crewe was worrying his heart out over the reports of Captain Dare's condition, John Dare being Crewe's own brother. Gillespie had changed his name when his Grandfather Crewe adopted him. Not many people, even in the army, knew of this fact, and it was clear that the doctor was ignorant of it from the first question that he put to Crewe that night on the pier end, for he asked him if he knew John Dare personally. "I do," answered Crewe, but he volunteered no explanation and the doctor went on. Other questions that he put brought out the fact that Crewe had been stationed once at Bangyak, that he was familiar with the Moro situation of the locality, and that he had even known Mohammed Ping, the aged Moro sultan whose extraordinary and bloody absolutism extended over that whole section of Mindanao. The doctor was much pleased at this. "This is a strange case," he said, "but if you know the local conditions, and if you know Mohammed Ping and his ways, one of the salient points of the affair must have already occurred to you." JOTHING had occurred to Crewe except that his No brother had been wounded and was getting well, but he only said: "What point do you mean?" "Why, this," replied the doctor, "the very remarkable circumstance that during the term of Captain Dare's command-eleven long months-there should have been but one bloody job done in all the neighborhood, and that of this one job he should have been a victim. Do you see?" "I don't know whether I do or not," said Crewe. "Well, the thing is a contradiction in terms," said the doctor enigmatically. "Keep it in mind.” Crewe looked at him curiously through the darkness "As you probably know from Anderson's official re- "Go ahead," said Crewe. He strove to be patient and "In the first place," said the doctor, "have you ever seen a wound made by a Moro cutting knife, a kris or barong? Of course you have." Crewe assented. "And the walls are smooth, aren't they?" he asked "Now think about this," the doctor continued. "If Crewe hesitated. "Do you mean," he said, "that I'd stab?" "That's it!" said the doctor. "With a small light blade any man would stab. It's instinctive. And yet," he added, "the fact is Captain Dare has been cut in the shoulder with a small blade. The wound looked as if you had tried to carve a leg of mutton with a pocketknife." CR OREWE took the cigar from his mouth. "I thought Captain Dare reported that a Lake Moro had cut him down with a kris?" he said. "He did," said the doctor. "That's the difficulty." "I should think there would be no difficulty," said Crewe, "if Captain Dare said it was a kris." "I think we had better understand each other," said the doctor. "If you are a friend of Captain Dare's-" "Can't we get at the facts without going into personalities?" Crewe interrupted, and the second opportunity for explanations was gone. "The first fact," said the doctor quietly, "is that Captain Dare was cut four times with a pocketknife instead of once with a kris." Crewe looked at him in amazement. He was interested now. "Well, go on," he said. "When Captain Dare was brought to me," continued the doctor, "the bandanna handkerchief was still where he had tied it. After I had seen the wound I began to examine the handkerchief. I found two stains on it, made by wiping the blade of a pocketknife. Afterward I found a pocketknife, the blade of which fitted the stains. And on that blade and on the buckhorn handle there was blood." "Then how do you account for Dare's mistake about the kris?" demanded Crewe. ment. "Let's pass that for the moment," said the doctor, "and fit these facts to the rest of Captain Dare's stateWe have to imagine a Lake Moro coming out of the grass, overpowering Captain Dare, who is a very strong man, cutting his shoulder four times in a straight rip with a pocketknife, wiping the blade on his red bandanna handkerchief, and putting the knife back in his breeches pocket-" "Whose pocket?" said Crewe. "Dare's," said the doctor. "It was his knife." ΑΝ N EXCLAMATION escaped Crewe. "His knife?" he repeated. "Yes," said the doctor, "his knife." "Do you imply," said Crewe, "that Captain Dare willfully misstated what occurred?" "Is there any way out of it?" replied the doctor. Crewe hesitated. "But how could a Moro cut him with his own pocketknife?" he demanded. "That's just it," said the doctor, "how could he? Bear in mind, Captain Dare was armed, but fired no shot. He said he heard none fired, and his own arms were clean." There was a pause. Then Crewe said, lowering his voice: "You don't suspect Prideau?" "Could he have done what the Moro couldn't do?" said the doctor. "But somebody must have cut him. If it wasn't either of them, who was it?" There was a note of tension and challenge in Crewe's voice like the tone of a man who hears a noise in the dark and calls: "Who's there?" "He cut himself," said the doctor. After a moment's silence, Crewe broke into a forced laugh. "Why should a man hack his own shoulder to pieces?" he asked. "That is just what I wanted to know," said the doc tor, "and I think I found out." He took something from a pocket, found Crewe's hand in the darkness and laid it on his palm. "Can you tell what that is by the feel?" he asked. "It's a bullet," said Crewe. "Yes," said the doctor. "I took that bullet out of Captain Dare's kris wound." Crewe stood dumfounded with the bit of lead in his hand. A blind apprehension was attacking him the fear he had known as a child when telegrams came at night. "But Captain Dare said nothing about a shot wound," he said mechanically. "No," said the doctor. "Is it likely that he would, when to conceal it he cut his own shoulder and invented the Moro? Why a Lake Moro we'll see presently." "Come! Come!" said Crewe. "Captain Dare isn't the kind of man to do things like that." "How much do you know about Captain Dare?" asked the doctor quietly. Crewe was silent, struggling with the dumb, unreasoning dread that was gripping him. "What are you driving at?" he said finally. "Why should he hide this bullet? If you know who shot him, tell me." "You can draw your own conclusions," replied the doctor. "It is a Lueger bullet. If there is any weapon which a Moro would be unlikely to get hold of it's a Lueger pistol. I don't suppose there are twenty in the islands. I know there was just one in Bangyak, and it went out with that hunting party." "Do you mean Dare shot himself?" said Crewe-"an accident?" "No," said the doctor, "the pistol was Prideau's." CREWE tried to speak nonchalantly, but his voice trembled. He was shaken with the sense of a great relief. "Oh," he said, "so Prideau shot him?" "Yes," said the doctor, "Prideau shot him, but in self-defense." Crewe leaned back, immovable against a snubbing post, his arms folded, the red end of his cigar gleaming and the doctor's words dinning in his brain. He felt the moments pass, he felt his heart beating, and he felt the paralysis of fear creeping over him. "I don't think I understand," he said at last. "Was there anything between Prideau and-John Dare?" THE doctor went to the side, looked over, peered about him through the darkness, and listened. It was a very still night. There were intermittent whisperings of water along the stonework, the occasional wash of some tepid little wave that broke wearily on the sand; nothing else. "I guess it's all right," he said. "I'll tell you what I know and you can judge for yourself. On the 11th of January, a year ago, the expedition that was ready to start against Mohammed Ping was called off. At that time Prideau was commissary officer and Dare asked him to check up his stores that same night. He asked him how long it would take, and I heard Prideau answer: 'Until eleven o'clock, anyway.' "About a quarter past ten I was in bed reading when I heard some one hurrying up my front steps. The door opened and Prideau came in very much upset. 'Doctor,' he said, 'I've caught my wife and Jack Dare; what shall I do about it?' "I asked him what he meant, and he said that he had run out of cigarettes and wanted to smoke. So he stepped out and went home by a short cut across the square and through his back yard. As he was about to go in by the side door he heard Dare's voice in the dark sitting room. There was no light in the front part of the house. Apparently Dare had heard him coming, for he said in an undertone: 'What's that?' "I didn't hear anything,' said Mrs. Prideau. "And Dare said: 'I thought I heard a step. It couldn't be Frank?' "No,' said Mrs. Prideau; 'he won't be home for an hour.' "He told me,' said Dare, 'that he wouldn't be finished till eleven, but I'd better be going. He might be coming in.' "Then he said: 'Good night,' and she said: 'Jack, you must be patient. Promise me.' "I'll try,' he answered, 'for your sake I'll try; but, Alice, how can I face to-morrow alone, and after that to-morrow?' "She was leaving next day for Japan," the doctor added. "She answered: 'Jack, I think it's a mistake not to be open about it. It would be so much better to let the world know. It's a kind world. Tell your brother anyway.' "Why hurt him till it's necessary?' he answered. 'No, my way is best.' "With that he went out by the front door, and Prideau heard his wife begin to cry in the dark. Then he slipped out the back way again and came to me, as I told you. When he had finished he asked me what he ought to do, and I told him the first thing was to go back and see if his wife had any explanation to offer. 'You never can tell,' I said. 'There may be a perfectly good explanation.' I said this more to calm him than for any other reason. When he had gone I wrote down what he had said, for I thought that if anything happened I should be called as a witness. But nothing ever happened. In half an hour he came back. "Don't ever talk about this,' he said. 'Alice has explained that he was telling her some bad news that he got in a cable this evening. He's peculiar about such things, she said, and he wouldn't let her tell anybody, even me. But, of course, I trust her.' "I said that I was glad that it had come out all right, for I thought it was better for him to get used to the idea that his wife was in love with Dare little by little. Presently he went home and I went to bed." Crewe had listened motionless. Finally he realized that he must say something. "Did Prideau mention what was in that cable?" |