John Swinton on the independence of the press

Variations on the quote below have been misattributed as a response to a toast, by

John Swinton, as "the former Chief of Staff at the New York Times", before the New
York Press Club in 1953. However, research reveals that Swinton (1829-1901), after
moving to New York, wrote an occasional article for the New York Times and was
hired on a regular basis in 1860 as head of the editorial staff. Afterward holding this
position throughout the Civil War, he left the paper in 1870 and became active in the
labor struggles of the day. He later served eight years in the same position on the New
York Sun and later published a weekly labor sheet, John Swinton's Paper.
The remarks were apparently made by Swinton, then the preeminent New York
journalist, probably one night in 1880. Swinton was the guest of honour at a banquet
given him by the leaders of his craft. Someone who knew neither the press nor
Swinton offered a toast to the independent press. Swinton outraged his colleagues by
replying:
There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an
independent press. You know it and I know it.

There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you
did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid
weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected
with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of
you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on
the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to
appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation
would be gone.

The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to

pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and
his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is
this toasting an independent press?

We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the
jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our
possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are
intellectual prostitutes.

(Source: Labor's Untold Story, by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M.

Morais, published by United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of
America, NY, 1955/1979.)

Despite the misattribution, the quote raises the issue of whether there is not
continuing truth in Swinton's remarks, and whether some candid journalist might not
be able to fairly say similar things today. Anyone who has associated closely with
journalists can hardly avoid finding a ring of truth in such words, and the best
evidence lies in the actual product of journalists and how well, or how poorly, it both
agrees with and covers what actually happens, especially involving such things as
corruption and abuse of power.

John Swinton - Yes, He Said It, But...

3-8-2

John Swinton: Yes, he said it, but...

I got email from Jay Salter, one of my readers, who had come across the
http://www.snowcrest.net/zepp/Other_Voices/Swinton.htm John Swinton
vignette in my "Other Voices" section. He forwarded it to a journalist's
discussion area, asking for feedback.

One journalist there, Jeff McMahon, made this response to Jay:

"Yeah, I'll take that bait.

"The last time I saw that phony quote Swinton was identified as the
"chief of staff" of the New York SUN, the date was 1853, and where it
now says "I am paid weekly," it then said "I am paid $150 a week."
Which is, actually, about how much I made in journalism. Then some liar
realized that newspapers don't have chiefs of staff, at least the editorial
departments don't, and if you're going to lie you might as well do it big,
so they made him the EDITOR IN CHIEF of the New York TIMES in
NINETEEN 53. Unfortunately, the editor of the New York Times in 1953
was Turner Catledge.

"So, the quote itself betrays a need for journalists because otherwise
people who spread such propaganda might go unchecked.

"That having been said, I will acknowledge that this cheap lie, like most
cheap lies, has some truth to it. I think it is expressed rather bitterly,
personally, but I'm sure every journalist with any history in the biz has
had at least one day when they felt that way. It's the very reason that I
gladly applied the word "former" to the word "journalist" when it is
attached to my name.

"Indeed, New York Times executive editor Max Frankel said something
very similar about the impact of profiteering on journalism after he
retired in 1994. Frankel probably isn't quoted quite so widely because he
doesn't use 21st century Neo_Old_Testament Naderite phrasiology like
"fawn at the feet of mammon."
"What "Swinton" describes is not so easily described or it would have
been dealt with. It is more like a constant, subtle pressure to bend to
power. A pressure that can be defied and maybe even often, but that does
not seem to ever go away. The strong spend a career tilting against it; the
weak let it direct them, as you can see every day in this county's media.

"It certainly isn't true that you can never write your true opinion in the
American press. I wrote my true opinion plenty of times, most recently
when I wrote that commentary about Hearst Ranch. It managed to pass
through two editors and a publisher without one word changed. However,
no anti-Hearst commentary can run in this county without a Steve Hearst
commentary on the very same page. And who is responsible for that? Is it
the fault of the journalists? No, for that subversion of truth and integrity
we can thank our county's professional greenwashers.

"Anyway, before posting such, we should consider how our brothers and
sisters in the Newspaper Guild might feel about such a broadbrush
defilement of a very diverse group of largely hard working and
unanimously underpaid men and women.

"I propose the following bumper sticker:

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL FACT CHECKER

In cheerful solidarity, Jeff McMahon" ___

OK. Jay forwarded McMahon's response back to me, and since I would
like to keep things reasonably accurate on my webpage, I went looking to
see if I could verify or dispute the Swinton vignette.

It turned out - surprise! - that like most really good stories, it contained a
little bit of truth, and a bit of fiction, and, unlike most really good stories,
the reality behind the story is even more interesting.

Yes, Virginia, there was a John Swinton, and yes, he was an editor of the
New York Times, and yes, he did say the remarks attributed to him.
However, he did not say it at a retirement party, he did not say it as an
editor of the Times, and he certainly did not say it in 1953, for the simple
reason that he died in 1901.

A web search turned up the same vignette, word for word as I had it, in
hundreds of locations. However, as McMahon notes, there are variations
on the theme, including one which had him born in 1829 and giving the
remarks at a retirement party in 1918. He would have been at least 88.
Feisty old bastard, what with being dead 17 years and all.

But I hit paydirt in some odd areas. At

http://www.scots_in_the_civil_war.net/newsmen.htm, I found the
following:

John Swinton (1829_1901)

The managing editor of the New York Times during the Civil War, John
Swinton later became a crusading journalist in the movement for social
and labor reform. Scottish_born, he learned typesetting in Canada before
moving to the United States. During the trouble in Kansas he was active
in the freesoil movement and headed the Lawrence Republican. Moving
back to New York he wrote an occasional article for the Times and was
hired on a regular basis in 1860 as head of the editorial staff. Afterward
holding this position throughout the Civil War, he left the paper in 1870
and became active in the labor struggles of the day. He later served eight
years in the same position on the New York Sun and published a weekly
labor sheet, John Swinton's Paper.

At another location, Ayer Company Publishers, I came across this

information:

Ayer Company Publishers Phone: (888)_267_7323 FAX:

(603)_922_3348

Swinton, John

A MOMENTOUS QUESTION: The Respective Attitudes of Labor and

Capital Introduction by Leon Stein and Philip Taft In 1883 John Swinton
founded a four_page "independent" labor paper known simply as John
Swinton's Paper, and for the next four years until he could no longer
sustain it, made it the voice of the workers.

His book reflects his continuing concern for the interrelationship between
the workers and political and economic events. In particular it provides a
close_up view of the dramatic sympathy strike of the railroad workers
who made the cause of the Pullman Strike their own. It is fully
documented with statements by the chief participants including Debs,
Gompers, John W. Hayes (Secretary_Treasurer of the Knights of Labor),
Governor Altgeld and President Cleveland.

LC 77_89764 Philadelphia & Chicago 1895 $28.95

ISBN: 0405021550

From this, we can surmise that he was disaffected with capitalism and the
American media, making the remarks attributed to him much more
credible. And it turns out that he has peripheral involvement in a trial in
1885, Illinois vs. August Spies et al. He is regarded by the defendants,
hard core Marxists, as being (ironically) too fond of and trusting in the
media and democracy.

People's Ex. 38.

THE ALARM, February 21, 1885. The Dynamite Terror.

As for the American people the thing to bear in mind is that here the
ballot can be so wielded that there shall be no need of resorting to force
for the cure of any public evil however deep rooted or malignant. --John
Swinton's paper.

The above is the concluding paragraph of a lengthy article of John

Swinton's paper last week. We are surprised to see our old friend bow at
the shrine of that capitalistic humbug -- the ballot.

America is not a free country. The economic condition of the workers

here are precisely the same as they are in Europe. A wage-slave is a slave
everywhere, without any regard to the country he may happen to have
been born in or made the living in.

Friend Swinton, how can the industrially enslaved be politically free?

How can a man without the right to live possess the right to vote?

You give the facts and illustrations in your own columns which proves
that the hand which holds the bread can alone wield the ballot.

What do you mean by "public evils"? Do you mean the political offices
with its bribery and corruption? And that [Image, People's Exhibit 38,
Page 2] all the workers have to do in order to be saved is to "turn the
rascals out?" Well, from a democratic point of view, Cleveland will

do that after the 4th of March next. The "outs" will go in and the "ins"
will go out. But surely you cannot mean that the wage_slave will no
longer be a slave?

Here in America the worker is deprived of life, liberty and happiness

(The Declaration of Independence to the contrary notwithstanding) in
spite of, yes, mainly by means of the ballot. With a copy of the
Declaration in one hand and the ballot in the other, the wage_worker is
deluded into the belief that he is a free man and a sovereign?

The poor have no votes; poverty can't vote __ for itself Wealth alone can
vote. The workers vote wrong, because they are poor, and are poor
because they are robbed. Robbed of their inheritance__ the land; robbed
of their right to the free use of all the resources of life __ the means of
existence. The workers are deprived of all opportunity to acquire and
apply knowledge. They are deprived of all access to culture and
refinement. For the perpetuation of these evils they have to thank
government, the state, and ballot box and the politicians. Politicians and
the State are the legitimate, inevitable outgrowth of the profit_mongering
system of wage_slavery, based upon competition and wages. We cannot
get rid of the former until we remove the latter.

The deep rooted, malignant evil which compels the [Image, People's
Exhibit 38, Page 3] wealth_producers to become the dependent hirelings
of a few capitalistic Czars, cannot be reached by means of the ballot.

The ballot can be wielded by free men alone; but slaves can only revolt
and rise in insurrection against their despoilers.

Let us bear in mind the fact that here in America, as elsewhere, the
worker is held in economic bondage by the use of force, and the
employment of force therefore becomes a necessity to his ecomonic [sic]
emancipation! Poverty can't vote! ___

At http://www.trunkerton.fsnet.co.uk/journalism.htm I found what I

believe may be a more accurate rendition of the story. Given what I
learned of the manís far-left politics (a voice nearly dead in our
comfortable corporate existence) I find it easy to believe that he did say
that which was attributed to him. However, the claim that he so said as
managing editor of the NY Times, and in 1953, appear to be nothing
more than misguided efforts to give the story cachet and topicality.

As for Mr. McMahon's response, I would say that he is entirely correct in

saying that the story creates an unfair image of the media. However, with
the possible exception of Hunter S. Thompson, there are no Swintons in
the American media these days, and I would ask Mr. McMahon why he
thinks that is so. A media that presents only half the range of opinion is
presenting no information at all.
One night, probably in 1880, John Swinton, then the preeminent New
York journalist, was the guest of honour at a banquet given him by the
leaders of his craft. Someone who knew neither the press nor Swinton
offered a toast to the independent press. Swinton outraged his colleagues
by replying:

"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as

an independent press. You know it and I know it.

"There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if
you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am
paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am
connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things,
and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions
would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my
honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty_four
hours my occupation would be gone.

"The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to

pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country
and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly
is this toasting an independent press?

"We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the
jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our
possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are
intellectual prostitutes."

(Source: Labor's Untold Story, by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M.

Morais, published by United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of
America, NY, 1955/1979.)