Download - Forrester Thesis
EMERSON COLLEGE GRADUATE STUDIES
“BOODLE” IN THE NEWS: COMMERCIALIZATION AND COMMODIFICATION OF JOURNALISM
AND THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH’S COVERAGE OF THE “CENTRAL TRACTION” SCANDALS, 1898-1904
A Master’s Thesis
Submitted by
John S. Forrester
To the Graduate Faculty of Emerson College
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree
of Master of Arts
in
Journalism.
Emerson College
Boston, Massachusetts August 2011
“BOODLE” IN THE NEWS: COMMERCIALIZATION AND COMMODIFICATION OF JOURNALISM
AND THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH’S COVERAGE OF THE “CENTRAL TRACTION” SCANDALS, 1898-1904
John S. Forrester Approved as to style and content by: _______________________________________________________ Melinda Robins, Chairperson of Committee Date ________________________________________________________ Emmanuel Paraschos, Graduate Program Director Date
__________________________________________________ Emmanuel Paraschos Date
Graduate Program Director Department of Journalism
________________________________________________________
Richard Zauft, Dean of Date Graduate Studies
To my great aunt
Eunice Maxwell Howard
Emerson College Graduate and Professor Actress, Radio Star, Dancer, Aviator
The story of your life inspires me.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many thanks are owed to my mom, Katherine Forrester for her constant support and emergency tech support. Thank you to Melinda Robins and Manny Paraschos for believing in me, and this project. Merci for the edits Melinda, I will never use ‘towards’ again. My dad, John Forrester Sr., helped with ideas and listened to my early fragmented explanations of what the project was. Alex Pearlman, Ryan Lee, Ryan Hill, Ashley Lynn, and Christopher and Lily Brenneck helped edit, listen to ideas, read drafts, and/or provided immoral support.
Abstract
BOODLE” IN THE NEWS: COMMERCIALIZATION AND COMMODIFICATION OF JOURNALISM
AND THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH’S COVERAGE OF THE “CENTRAL TRACTION” SCANDALS, 1898-1904
By
John S. Forrester
Emerson College
August, 2011
This thesis presents historical analysis of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s crusade against municipal corruption from 1898 to 1904 and its promotion of an image of oligarchical control of local affairs. Viewing the case in the context of the theories of commercialization and commodification, it is shown that the newspaper’s coverage was a reflection of both its financial interests (to build circulation and advertising) and journalists’ zeal for reform (using news to affect real change). Capitalistic for-profit orientation enabled the Post-Dispatch to expose officials’ wrongdoing, but hindered other local newspapers, which were essentially muzzled by owners and advertisers.
TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 6 Overview Methodology Literature Review CHAPTERS: I. ST. LOUIS AND ITS PRESS AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY 28 II. HISTORY OF THE POST-‐DISPATCH’S “CENTRAL TRACTION” SCANDAL COVERAGE, 1898-‐1904 46 III. COMMENTARY ON COMMODIFICATION 80 IV. CONCLUSION 103 BIBLIOGRAPHY 114
6 [Type text] [Type text]
INTRODUCTION
A. OVERVIEW
“One Hundred Miles of Streets, Belonging to the People of St. Louis,
Shamelessly Turned Over to a Private Company for Purposes Wholly
Unnecessary.”1 Nestled behind news of a coming war with Spain, this
subhead on page six of the April 13, 1898 issue of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
heralded the first article of a six-year crusade exposing bribery and corruption
in the municipal government of St. Louis, Missouri.
The article covered the passage of legislation in the city’s Municipal
Assembly known as the “Central Traction” bill that allowed a corporation the
privilege of consolidating the city’s half-dozen independent streetcar lines into
a monopoly. In the days after the bill’s approval, the Post-Dispatch charged
that some assemblymen received “boodle,” or bribe in the local parlance of
the time, to ensure the bill’s passage. Prodding by the paper nudged a grand
jury into an investigation. The circuit court2 ordered the jury to indict officials
or charge the paper with criminal libel. Neither occurred. The Post-Dispatch’s
information could not be found libelous, nor could the jury find sufficient
evidence to indict specific officials, though the body reported that bribery was
involved in the measure’s passage.
1 “Other 15 – No Title” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 13 Apr. 1898: 6 2 A local term for District Court at the time.
7 [Type text] [Type text]
The crusade against the street railroad “franchise grabbers” was
somewhat tempered until early 1902 when an opportunistic circuit attorney3
named Joseph W. Folk began prosecuting officials and promoters involved in
the Central Traction bill. The circuit attorney’s investigations and indictments
were predominantly the result of journalists’ footwork. While the Post-
Dispatch was an ardent supporter of reform and Folk’s political career in
general, the other major English language daily newspapers of St. Louis were
hesitant to embrace coverage and editorials critical of the decades-old system
of municipal corruption.
The alleged backers of the bill, and other corrupt legislation and
business deals, comprised a group that became known as the “Big Cinch” in
the early twentieth century. Its membership consisted of twenty or so leading
members of political, financial and commercial circles, who were said to
control St. Louis’ political offices, industry, financial institutions and other
major businesses for their own collective benefit. There is truth to the
mythology, but at the same time, scholars have concluded the “Big Cinch”
specter was also a perpetuation of a decades-old image of local oligarchical
control and the product of a personal vendetta held by Joseph Pulitzer, the
Post-Dispatch’s founder and owner. The legend of the “Big Cinch” persisted
well into the twentieth century.
Exposés and crusades were not new elements of journalism,
particularly at the Post-Dispatch. From its founding in 1878, the afternoon
3 A term for District Attorney.
8 [Type text] [Type text]
daily was dedicated to exposing the corruption of St. Louis’ political and
business elite. In fact, criticizing (or, perhaps more accurately, attacking) the
city’s leading figures for corrupt or immoral behavior – real or invented – was
somewhat of a tradition in St. Louis, dating back to the appearance of its first
newspaper, the Missouri Gazette in 1808. Over the course of a century, editors
and journalists in St. Louis, channeling partisan or personal animosities,
created the perception that the political and commercial affairs of St. Louis
were selfishly controlled by small groups of wealthy men.
While its cast of characters shifted over time, the narrative of local
domination by a cadre of elites was well established by the founding of
Pulitzer’s paper. From the mid 1800s to the turn of the century, the image of
the group’s members transitioned from the patriarchal French and American
merchant families of “old” St. Louis to a microcosmic melting pot of deep-
rooted families and newly-arrived European immigrants and financiers from
the eastern United States. This cast change reflected the growth of St. Louis
into the nation’s fourth largest city.4
By 1898, the organized system of graft “got out of hand,” as one
contemporary historian puts it, dividing the city’s leading figures by those
who wanted to preserve the status quo and those who urged for political and
social reform.5 Laid out in a 61-square mile patchwork of ethnic and socio-
economic distinct neighborhoods, St. Louis at the turn of the century was a
humming metropolis with a myriad of political, social, civic and commercial
4 See Rammelkamp, 1978, pp. 200-‐201; Primm, 1981, pp. 113-‐117; pp. 375-‐380 5 Rammelkamp, 1978, p. 203
9 [Type text] [Type text]
concerns. As the city’s population swelled with waves of immigrants and
other newcomers, an expansive system of public street rail transportation
developed, enabling the growth of a downtown commercial center, where
numerous department stores and other retailers opened.
The creation of a mass transit system and a powerful downtown retail
industry contributed to the growth of St. Louis’ newspaper industry and the
beginning of a transition that moved some papers away from partisanship to
focusing on advertising and circulation profits in the 1890s.6 Despite these
ongoing changes, St. Louis’ newspapers covered the ill deeds of the city’s
leading figures for decade after decade with little impact other than libel suits
and the occasional fist fight or duel.
In October 1902, the nation’s attention was drawn to local troubles by
“Tweed Days In St. Louis” in McClure’s Magazine, mostly written by Claude
H. Wetmore, city editor of the Post-Dispatch from 1898 to 1900, and edited
by Lincoln Steffens. Scholars consider their work as one of the first articles of
the Muckraking Era.7 Taking the imagery of the “Big Cinch” fashioned by
Pulitzer’s paper, Steffens repackaged the legend with his own social and
political perspectives for national audiences. What makes the Post-Dispatch’s
coverage and assistance in the “Central Traction” case noteworthy is that
unlike previous crusades, the newspaper contributed to a metamorphosis in
local and national journalism.
6 Nord, 1992, pp. 20-‐25 7 Leonard, p. 159; Fellow, 2010, p. 182
10 [Type text] [Type text]
In journalism, the paper’s coverage of the Central Traction exposes
and prosecutions marks a moment where a road diverged in journalistic
practice: The Post-Dispatch, from its founding by Joseph Pulitzer, had forged
a distinct style of investigative, advocacy journalism, embodied by its
aggressive exposures of local corruption. Muckraking magazine journalist
Lincoln Steffens and other writers took the well-traversed road of
sensationalism and moralizing, emulating and amplifying the style of early
Pulitzer-style crusades.8
At the same time, some of St. Louis’ editors and reporters were
building a sense of professionalism based on fealty to accurate, impartial truth
telling. Their reconfiguration of Pulitzer’s crusade model moved investigative
journalism toward a more pure, fact-based form, following the natural currents
of news instead of forcing divinations of evils. Decades before the
development of an national, industry-wide code of ethics, these journalists
were engaging in discourse over the nature of what journalism is and how
stories should be told.
The coverage of “boodle” in the Central Traction bill also marks a
point of demarcation between the partisan and “independent” newspapers in
St. Louis: The Post-Dispatch’s editorial line of egalitarianism and non-
partisanship paid off. Some of the city’s other daily newspapers, burdened by
party bias and financial connections to St. Louis’ elite, slipped in circulation
and advertising patronage after the incident. The Post-Dispatch became the
8 See Leonard, 1986, chapter 6
11 [Type text] [Type text]
dominant daily of St. Louis. Ultimately, this can be viewed as a demonstration
of the triumph of Pulitzer’s business model over the city’s partisan
curmudgeons that were slow to evolve.
The city of St. Louis and state of Missouri experienced a period of
reform in politics and local and state government in the wake of the period.
The city’s dailies, particularly the Post-Dispatch, contributed funds and
information to officials investigating corruption. Journalists’ reporting
directly contributed to indictments of local officials and businessmen involved
in bribery.
In laying out the history of the paper’s coverage from 1898 to 1904,
the peak years of exposures and legal actions for bribery in municipal affairs,
and providing primary source perspectives on the effects of the crusade on
newspapers and the city, this thesis presents evidence that the Post-Dispatch’s
coverage of the “Central Traction” bill and resulting prosecutions stimulated
editorial and business developments within St. Louis’ newspaper industry and
sparked commentary on press commercialization and commodification of
news by local journalists, politicians, and the community.
This thesis suggests that the paper’s crusade stemmed from a
combination of economic opportunity, competitive need, and a genuine zeal
for reform. During this period, the Post-Dispatch, journalists and some
members of the community cast the crusade and the resulting prosecutions as
a triumph of “independent” journalism. Examining the economic conditions
behind the crusade, it is this thesis’ view that capitalistic orientation played
12 [Type text] [Type text]
both a negative and positive role in local English daily newspapers’ ability, or
willingness, to expose corruption in municipal affairs.
Because the author of this thesis did not have time or financial
resources to examine the personal correspondence and business files of Joseph
Pulitzer at Columbia University in New York City or the Library of Congress,
these primary sources on the internal business operations of the Post-Dispatch
were unexamined. Though this could represent a weakness of the thesis,
available resources provided a variety of period perspectives on the local
newspaper industry including some Pulitzer editors and subordinates, local
journalists, a reforming clergyman, an idealistic St. Louis businessman, and
other local figures. To the author of this thesis, this multitude of observers is a
positive aspect, in that the perspective of the Post-Dispatch’s management
does not dominate the text.
The major questions of interest to journalism history scholars presented by the
case are:
[1] Did for-profit orientation hinder or enable the turn of the century Post-
Dispatch in the “Central Traction” exposures?
[2] Was this incident an example of the triumph of journalism as a capitalistic
enterprise or a reflection of the industry’s emerging dictum of impartial public
service? Or was it both?
As some media critics are questioning the for-profit orientation of
newspapers and integrity of journalism in 2011, and traditional newspaper
business models are on the verge of crumbling, it is valuable for modern
13 [Type text] [Type text]
observers to see that journalists were dealing with many of the same pressures
that news professionals today encounter: Namely the challenge of efficiently
serving the public’s information needs at ever-increasing speeds, while also
pleasing advertisers and whomever was financially vested in the news
organization.
Scholars generally view commercialization and commodification as
negative influences on journalism. This thesis offers insight into the positive
effects of these two conditions in addition to the negative, challenging the
inherent scholarly bias against capitalism-oriented news organizations.
Evidence presented in this thesis could contribute to a reassessment of these
two theories: The concepts are one sided and static, displaying an ignorance of
economic and political changes over time.
B. METHODOLOGY
This paper intends to present a historical analysis of the Post-Dispatch’s
exposures of corruption from 1898 to 1904, and its advancement of the “Big
Cinch” legend, within the context of turn of the century news
commercialization and commodification. This author will outline the history
of the paper’s Central Traction crusade and its connection to an image of
upper class hegemony; provide primary source evidence of commentary on
the commercial nature of journalism sparked by this coverage; and provide
analysis of observers’ perspectives.
The research aim of this thesis is to explore how commercialization and
commodification of news in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
14 [Type text] [Type text]
negatively or positively impacted municipal corruption coverage by the Post-
Dispatch and competing local dailies. Broadly, this thesis looks at how the
news business co-exists with sources of financial and political power. The
source of the signature at the bottom of journalists’ paychecks has consistently
remained under scrutiny, from the partisan press to corporate bloggers in the
twenty-first century.
The theory of commercialization, defined by scholar Denis McQuail,
is a progression where the content and organization of the press become
“governed” by capitalistic concerns.9 In the partisan press, editors were
financially and editorially tied to the will of political parties. As the press
commercializes, newspaper owners or stakeholders and advertisers become its
primary benefactors. One might assume that, liberated from the vestiges of
partisan influence, a commercialized press could enable publishers and editors
to embrace editorial independence and public service. McQuail notes that in
this theory’s interpretation the exact opposite occurs: In striving to please
newspaper stockholders and advertisers, commercialized media forfeits its
editorial independence by focusing efforts on the production of homogenized
content to draw mass audiences and maximum advertising revenue.10
Commercialization compromises the press’ integrity as a trustworthy news
source as editorial content drifts to sensationalism and intrinsically promotes
consumerism and materialism.11
9 McQuail, 2005, p. 550 10 ibid 11 ibid
15 [Type text] [Type text]
Related to commercialization, the theory of news commodification is a
concept emerging from Marxist theory that views messages in news content
(like ideas, morals and values) as a commodity that can develop a monetary
value.12 These messages in the news are sold like any other product to an
audience, who then circulate or exchange them within their community and
families. The audience’s spread of the messages furthers a fabricated sense of
awareness of the world and its issues that renders the public subordinate to the
societal status quo reflected in the news.13 The audience, in this theory’s view,
is also a commodity that can be purchased by advertisers for promotional
needs.
This thesis examines the role of commercialization in St. Louis’
newspaper market, particularly the Pulitzer paper, to gauge whether for-profit
orientation hindered or supported the press’ ability or willingness to reveal
corruption in local affairs. Based on evidence presented below, it appears that
the newspapers’ capitalistic focus both worked for and against journalists who
desired to serve the public’s interest by exposing the conditions. Viewing the
incident in the context of theory of commodification, this thesis asserts that
the Post-Dispatch capitalized on news of local reform efforts, the prosecutions
and political career of Joseph W. Folk, and the promotion of the “Big Cinch”
legend to best competitors in the local newspaper market. In turn, other
newspapers and writers (locally and nationally) attempted to mirror the Post-
Dispatch’s financial success and ability to influence public opinion by
12 McQuail, 2005, p. 550 13 McQuail, 2005, p. 550
16 [Type text] [Type text]
implementing the paper’s messages of elite dominance, support for local
reform and praise of prosecutions of corrupt figures.14
The research approach is historical analysis that encompasses a recent
“economic/cultural” theory of journalism history recently proposed by
journalism historian Chris Daly that assumes changes in editorial content over
time are the result of economic changes in the industry and its surroundings. 15
Alterations in news organizations’ business models, practices, and ethos,
according to Daly, should be analyzed based on the following assumptions:
(1) production of the news is an “economic enterprise,” and it is essential to
take their business models into account; (2) developments in journalism
practice are results of broader economic changes; and (3) when economic
change occurs, tension between the new business system and the existing
“culture of news” arise, resulting in a re-interpretation of values, practices and
philosophy of the culture surrounding newsgathering.16
This thesis takes Daly’s theory into account by incorporating the idea that
the developments in editorial coverage of local politics and elites were
influenced by the commercial nature of the newspaper business, competitive
nature of the local media landscape, and local and national economic
conditions and developments. Attention is paid to the business end of the
newspapers, and whatever advertising, ownership or other financial-related
14 The vigor and depth of support varied from newspaper to newspaper, as partisan allegiances still existed in most of city’s dailies. They generally came to support reform and prosecutions of corrupt officials and businessmen. Backing of circuit attorney Folk was not uniform, particularly regarding his political career and 1904 bid for governor. 15 See Daly, 2009, part 2, pp. 148-‐155 16 ibid
17 [Type text] [Type text]
connections the press may have had to Edward Butler and the elite members
of the “Big Cinch.”
Discussion of class tensions is unavoidable in any work involving the
press and the Progressive Era, especially in St. Louis’ setting of government
and corporate corruption. The theme of big business versus common people
was a prevalent in the period’s newspaper articles, rhetoric of reformers and
their opponents, and scholarly work.
Discussions of class tensions and the theme of corrupt government and
business versus the people is unavoidable in any work involving the press and
the Progressive era - a prevalent feature of newspaper articles, the rhetoric of
reformers and their opponents, and scholarly work done as events were
unfolding and through the twentieth century. The relationship of social class
to media, Marxist theory, has become a significant topic in contemporary
communications research. The term “elite” in this paper is meant to depict
wealthy white male residents of St. Louis who were leading figures in the
business, political, and/or civic affairs of the city.
Attempting to provide a factual representation of events, this thesis
acknowledges the importance of taking socio-economic backgrounds, political
leanings, financial interests, and other influences impacting the rhetoric or
bias behind the statements of period observers.
Due to time and financial constraints, the papers of Joseph Pulitzer at
Columbia University and New York City and the Library of Congress in
Washington D.C. were not examined by the author. This presents a weakness
18 [Type text] [Type text]
of this paper, given Pulitzer’s ownership and editorial control of the Post-
Dispatch, personal history, and interest in politics. There are also undoubtedly
more primary source documents related to the topic that are yet to be
discovered in the libraries of St. Louis, the state of Missouri and elsewhere.
C. LITERATURE REVIEW
Existing contemporary academic work consulted in the process of
researching this paper focused on commercialization and commodification of
news in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in general; the history and
commercialization of St. Louis press; works related to the incident and the
reform movement of St. Louis.
Contemporary scholars have sought to either verify the validity of the
“Big Cinch” legend or define the group’s role in municipal affairs within the
context of political science or reform ideology. Historians have pointed out
newspapers’ role in swaying public opinion towards reform and their
propagation of an image of dominance by elite figures. Few have considered
the context of local newspapers’ financial conditions and incentives during
this period in furthering the “Big Cinch” mythology, covering issues of
corruption and promoting reform.
A central theme of the “Big Cinch” legend was that its members
controlled most of St. Louis’ newspapers, creating a culture of silence that
permeated for decades until the Post-Dispatch “decided’ to expose it all. In
his comprehensive examination of the economic realities behind the “Big
Cinch” legend, historian Alexander Scot McConachie surmises that the
19 [Type text] [Type text]
history St. Louis’ newspaper industry in the early twentieth century indicates
that this was not true. He cites the Republic as an example, a paper owned by
alleged Cinch member David R. Francis and considered the voice of the “Big
Cinch,” that eventually went bankrupt in 1919.17 But McConachie was not a
scholar of journalism history. His examination of the relationship between
newspapers and the “Big Cinch” was limited and was chiefly confined to the
twentieth century.
American journalism has a long tradition of exposés and investigative
journalism. The partisan-backed newspapers of the early nineteenth century
regularly included exposés of government corruption (typically national or
state) in their columns, usually with the aim of discrediting figures associated
with rival parties.18 This trend continued in the era of the commercialized
newspaper, with its chief aim to bolster circulation to bring in advertising
revenue.
The Post-Dispatch was exposing graft in local government for over
twenty years before national muckraking magazines, like McClure’s and the
Atlantic, cast national attention on the city’s municipal problems, scholars
point out.19 Pulitzer’s shift to “independent,” non-partisan journalism in the
late nineteenth century and the his paper’s relentless crusades against
municipal corruption in the 1880’s can be attributed to increased profit
opportunities, political developments and a growing public demand for
17 McConachie, 1976, p. 153 18 Aucoin, 2005, pp. 22-‐23 19 Rammelkamp, 1967, [pages]; Primm, 1981, p. 378. Leonard, 1986, pp. 173-‐[finish]
20 [Type text] [Type text]
scandals covered in literary, rather than partisan, style, concludes historian
Thomas Leonard.20 The Post-Dispatch took advantage of the development of
the city’s “centralized market,” writes Leonard, embracing advertising and
mass audiences, while the partisan papers were “too distracted, too
accustomed to insulting readers outside the party,” to quickly adapt to the
nascent environment of newspaper commercialism.21
Prior to the national attention generated by the Post-Dispatch’s
coverage of the Central Traction exposures and subsequent trials, Leonard
writes, the newspaper’s crusades against local corruption in the 1880s and
1890s “illustrate how a stone may drop, with a small splash and no ripples.”22
Between 1879, shortly after the founding of the Post-Dispatch and October
1902, when Steffens and Wetmore’s story appeared in McClure’s Magazine,
Leonard’s research found, most national magazine articles written on St.
Louis portray its municipal government as a national example of democratic
rule.23 The nation, Leonard asserts, dismissed the local papers’ allegations of
official wrongdoing until Lincoln Steffens’ articles.24 The early crusades,
however, did increase the paper’s circulation.
Connecting the Pulitzer paper’s exposés in the 1880s to Steffens’
magazine articles at the turn of the century, Leonard’s discussion is primarily
focused on showing how the Post-Dispatch’s early crusade techniques led to
20 Leonard, 1986, p. 165 21 Leonard, 1986, pp. 174-‐175 22 Leonard, 1986, p. 169 23 ibid. 24 Leonard, 1986, p. 192
21 [Type text] [Type text]
muckraking. The lasting impacts of Pulitzer’s paper on the local newspaper
industry are not examined, nor were the challenges presented to the city’s
dailies by the city’s powerful business interests.
Gerald Baldasty, one of the first contemporary historians to
comprehensively examine the commercialization of news in the nineteenth
century, writes that the shift from partisan to profit-oriented newspapers
occurred because of three major changes: An evolution in the way publishers
viewed newspapers’ business side; new views on the proper role of the press
in society; and technological developments and competitive pressures that
increased the speed and complexity of reporting and printing the news. 25
Baldasty views advertising as a major boon for the rise of independent
journalism. Beginning in the late 1890s, businesses increasingly thought of
advertising in newspapers as a necessity for profitability as growing
circulations enabled businesses to forge a direct link with a large array of
potential consumers.26 Department stores were “particularly dependent” on
newspaper advertising because their business model relied on high levels of
foot traffic to quickly turn over on hand stock.27 Along with developments in
marketing was the rise of national distribution of consumer goods like patent
medicines, cookies, and whiskey. By the end of the 1800s, most urban
25 Baldasty, 1992, p. 4 26 Baldasty, 1992, pp. 55-‐56 27 Baldasty, 1992, p. 57
22 [Type text] [Type text]
newspapers contained a mixture of local and national ads, with department
stores as their most lucrative clients.28
Advertisers frequently attempted to pressure editors to publish “bright
and entertaining” content that did not conflict with their personal, commercial
or political interests.29 Papers that strayed were boycotted. Beyond
advertisers’ efforts to dictate newspapers’ content, Baldasty notes that the
advertising industry in the 1890s pushed the press to generate a product
“compatible” with their publicity needs.30 The Post-Dispatch increased its
display advertising rates by 20 percent annually during the 1880s, but by
1900, a manager remarked to Pulitzer that raising rates was difficult.31 This
was likely due to advertisers’ resistance to constantly increasing rates and
efforts by state-based and national newspaper trade organizations to
standardize ad prices.32
Baldasty describes the commercialization of news in the mid- to late-
1800s as a period where the industry’s concept of news content shifted to
viewing the text within its columns as a product, or commodity, that, in the
minds of owners and editors, could, and should, be manufactured with
28 Baldasty, 1992, p. 54, p. 72 29 Baldasty, 1992, p. 72 30 Baldasty, 1992, p. 78 31 Rammelkamp, 1967, p. 203. See footnote 159. Rammelkamp cites memo from Post-‐Dispatch business manager William C. Steigers to Joseph Pulitzer, March 17, 1900; Pulitzer Papers (CU). 32 Like many other state-‐based newspaper trade associations, the Missouri Press Association pushed for the standardization of advertising rates in the late 1880s (Baldasty, 1992, p. 104). See Baldasty for more on the trade associations’’ efforts to create uniform rates.
23 [Type text] [Type text]
maximum profits in mind.33 During this same period, journalists and the
public started to think of journalism as a legitimate profession and, to an
extent, as a watchdog for the public’s welfare.34
Journalism historian Michael Schudson postulates that many
contemporary works in American journalism history, including Gerald
Baldasty’s “Commercialization of News,” reflect an anti-commercial bias,
portraying events in terms of conflicts between editorial and business
pressures, or a “profits are doom” mentality.35 “But,” Schudson asks, “is the
profit motive always corrupting?”36 Citing Baldasty’s research, Schudson
notes coverage of political news was more abundant in the commercial press
1890’s compared to the partisan press in 1831.37 This paper intends to reflect
Daly’s 2009 theory that changes in editorial ideology and professionalism in
journalism emerged as a result of greater commercial developments.
Additionally, the work intends to respond to Schudson’s call for historians to
examine the positive impacts of commercialization.
The case covered in this thesis represents a transitional point between two
periods of journalism history, as outlined by historian Chris Daly: The
“commercialization of news,” covering the span of 1833 to 1900, and the
“professionalization of news,” beginning at the turn of the century and
33 Baldasty, 1992, p. 4 34 Baldasty, 1992, p. 159, footnote 4. 35 Schudson, 1997, p. 466. 36 Ibid. 37 Schudson, 1997, p. 466
24 [Type text] [Type text]
culminating with the Watergate exposures.38 Professionalization of news, the
development of journalism’s identity as an occupation bearing its own
standards, procedures and culture, emerged near the turn of the century, Daly
notes, as the industry’s dominant philosophy shifted from writing “anything
that sells papers” to “non-partisan factuality.”39 Additionally, the structure of
news organization’s ownership experienced changes, he writes, from a
mixture of private corporations, family trusts, and partnerships to an industry
predominantly controlled by private corporations.40
Libel suits also presented a financial concern to urban newspapers of
the late 1890s and early 1900s. Timothy Gleason’s research on libel litigation
between 1884 and 1899 found that the average number of suits brought
against newspapers nationwide rose significantly as the turn of the century
neared Between 1884 and 1891, there was an average of forty three libel suits
per year against all of newspapers around the country, rising to an average of
about one hundred and thirty seven suits per year between 1892 and 1899.41
The bulk of the plaintiffs were men working in government, business and
journalism.42
Lincoln Steffens’ pioneering muckraking articles on St. Louis have
drawn the attention of scholars since they were published. Though Steffens
may deserve credit for bringing national attention to St. Louis’ municipal
38 Daly, 2009, part 1, pp. 151-‐152 39 Daly, 2009, part 1, pp. 154-‐155 40 ibid. 41 Gleason, 1993, p. 895. These are mean averages calculated from Gleason’s data. 42 Ibid.
25 [Type text] [Type text]
issues at the turn of the century, the eminent muckraker and other writers
documenting St. Louis’ issues did not always depict conditions accurately,
typically casting circuit attorney Joseph W. Folk as a virtuous “lone wolf”
character – a “pure” middle-class rural reformer -- fighting the immoral forces
of big city grafters. Contemporary scholarship acknowledges the contributions
of the local press, particularly the Post-Dispatch, in the exposure and
prosecution of officials and prominent local figures for bribery and other
crimes, the codification of favorable public opinion for Folk’s reforms, and
material (financial) support of the circuit attorney’s investigations.43
As circuit attorney Joseph W. Folk struck at St. Louis’ decades old
culture of corruption in municipal government, the Pulitzer paper’s coverage
and editorial condemnation of legislation passed allowing the consolidation of
the city’s streetcar systems was the beginning of a greater campaign to
advance reform efforts. After the heyday of prosecutions for corruption, the
Post-Dispatch took a role in furthering an image of dominance of the city by
some of its upper class. These actions largely stemmed from the paper’s need
to compete with rival dailies, yet there was also genuine fervor for reform
among local journalists.
Historical work on municipal politics from 1850 to 1940 often frame
the period’s conflicts as the result of tensions between upper middle class
reformers, desiring moral rule and centralized government, versus political
machines, representing the rising power of immigrants and reaping rewards
43 Rammelkamp, 1978, p. 204; Primm, 1981, p. 390
26 [Type text] [Type text]
for partisan power.44 During the latter half of the 20th century, historians
began questioning the popularly circulated narrative of all-powerful municipal
political “bosses,” arguing that the Progressive era media and reformers
exaggerated the image of all-powerful municipal political “bosses” common
in the media and in academia around 1900.
The initial “all-powerful media” period of communications research
from 1900 to the 1930s encompassed a view of press based on observations of
World War I propaganda, the development of mass audiences and the rise of
commercial media. Communications researchers, influenced by propaganda,
the development of mass audiences through film and radio, and the rise of
advertising, made conclusions based largely on empirical evidence that the
media was an immense power to be reckoned with, fearing abuses in the
formation of public opinion.45
During the same period, the “Progressive concept,” an approach of
framing history through the lens of class struggle, became a major theme of
early journalism history, according to scholar David Sloan.46 A product of the
political and social conditions of the times in which it emerged, it centered on
the concept of “a struggle in which editors, reporters, and some publishers
were pitted on the side of freedom, liberty, civil reform, democracy, and
equality against the powerful malign forces of wealth, class, and
44 See Teaford, 1982, pp. 133-‐149 45 McQuail, 2005, p. 458. 46 Sloan, 1990, p. 64
27 [Type text] [Type text]
conservatism.”47 Sloan points to “Progressive concept” scholars’ tendency to
frame events during this period as good versus evil, or a black and white
struggle, as the major bias and flaw in the approach.
The image of “Boss” Edward Butler’s omnipotent power, circulated in
St. Louis newspapers and national magazines, was challenged by
contemporary historian Edward Rafferty, who argues Butler never wielded as
much sway in reality as journalists, historians and other observers described.48
While the press is acknowledged as a major contributor to Butler’s sinister
image as the underworld powerhouse of the “Big Cinch,” Rafferty’s text is not
focused on journalism history, thus the context of the newspapers’ editorial
policies and the effects of its portrayal of Butler are unnoticed. Others have
remarked on circuit attorney Folk’s adeptness at using the media to amplify
public sentiment for reform and further his own political career, while
downplaying journalists’ informational and material contributions to his
investigations.49 Historian James Neal Primm writes that the increase in press
coverage of reform issues was also reflection of the “atmosphere” in the
city.50
47 ibid 48 Rafferty, 1992, p. 55 49 Geiger, 1962, p. 447; Leonard, 1986, p. 176 50 Primm, 1981, p. 378.
28 [Type text] [Type text]
CHAPTER I: ST. LOUIS AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY
St. Louis, Missouri became the nation’s fourth largest city in 1900
when the U.S. Census that year recorded over 575,000 residents. The
Midwestern metropolis was also among the country’s principal manufacturing
centers, though industrial and commercial growth slowed as the turn of the
century approached.51 In less than one hundred years, St. Louis transformed
from a village of transient trappers to a sixty-one square mile patchwork of
ethnic or class defined neighborhoods.
Settled in 1764 by French fur traders, the future city’s site was selected
for its commercially valuable location at the confluence of the Missouri and
Mississippi rivers. Merchants and traders from France, Spain, England and the
American colonies made up the town’s first leaders and its political and social
elite. After Missouri’s transfer to American hands following the Louisiana
Purchase in 1803,
Irish-born printer Joseph Charless published St. Louis’ first newspaper, the
Missouri Gazette, on July 12, 1808. The Missouri territory’s governor,
Meriwether Lewis, attracted the Louisville-based printer by offering a federal
territorial printing contract, a privilege with distinct political undertones.52
The newspaper was originally intended to print notices on the proceedings of
Congress and the Federal government, as well as a voice of American
nationalism in the foothold of a vast new territory.
51 Primm, 1981, p. 435 52 Daly, 2009, part 1, p. 3.
29 [Type text] [Type text]
The French founders of the city and their American commercial allies
formed a municipal Board of Trustees shortly after the city’s incorporation in
1809, which gave its members significant power in local affairs.53 Antagonism
against this group arose as Americans newcomers to the city found it difficult
to immerse in the city’s business and political culture, leading to a conflict
between the business and political figures of “new” and “old” St. Louis.54
Early newspapers in St. Louis not only reflected the tension between “new”
and “old” St. Louisans, but also directly took part in it by furthering the image
that the “old” leading families of St. Louis were organized in a conspiracy to
dominate control of the city.
Although the bulk of its contents consisted of national and foreign
news, Charless published his personal opinions on a number of issues,
offending members of the Board of Trustees and other older families. The
editor went further by nicknaming the city’s “old” families the “St. Louis
Clique” or the “Little Junto.”55 Responding to the Gazette’s attacks, members
of the older families created the Western Journal in 1815, later renamed the
St. Louis Enquirer, to serve as a voice against Charless and other “new” St.
Louis figures. The number of newspapers in the frontier town grew over the
next few decades, most backed by political parties, candidates, or social
organizations. By the mid 1850s there were twenty one English language
newspapers published daily, weekly or monthly available to the city’s more
53 Primm, 1981, p. 99. 54 Davis, 1979, p. 343; Primm, 1981, pp. 113-‐117 55 Davis, 1979, p. 353; Primm, 1891, p. 115.
30 [Type text] [Type text]
than 70,000 residents.56 Their combined circulations were estimated at 72,000
for weekly editions; 19,000 for daily copies; and 6,400 for tri-weekly issues,
according to historian and journalist Walter Barlow Stevens.57 The high
weekly edition circulation indicates St. Louis’ newspapers were not “local,”
but regional at this point, serving a wide readership in the state and territories
to the west.
At the same time, thousands of immigrants from Germany, Ireland,
Italy and other European countries made their homes in St. Louis,
transforming the conflict of “new” versus “old” St. Louis into tensions
between “native” Americans and foreign newcomers. Strains between the
groups increased as immigrants, usually from working class roots, began to
gain power in local political and business spheres.58 An Irishman, George
McGuire was elected mayor in 1842, the first foreign-born man, and first
Democrat, to occupy that position.
Some elites in St. Louis, viewing immigrant communities as a threat to
their hegemony, and organized a “Native American” political party to combat
the rising power of German and Irish residents.59 Violence between “natives”
and immigrants was common in the late 1840s and 1850s. As in earlier social
conflicts, newspapers echoed the atmosphere of the times. The Republican
was the mouthpiece of the “natives,” opposing immigrant candidates and
56 Stevens, 1911, p. 167 57 Stevens, 1911, p. 167 58 Primm, 1981, pp. 172-‐176 59 Primm, 1981, p. 171
31 [Type text] [Type text]
antagonizing class and ethnic differences, while papers in foreign languages
were established to represent immigrant communities.60
In the decade preceding the Civil War, St. Louis became the nation’s
eighth largest city when its population reached over 160,000 in 1860.
Following the conflict’s end, St. Louis’ papers grew in size and influence
along with the city itself. Technological advances like the telegraph
revolutionized the newspaper and financial industries. In 1866, efforts to lay a
telegraph cable between America and Europe were completed, and the
exchange of international news and trade information increased rapidly.
Newspapers, as the chief recipients of data from foreign stock markets,
developed as a tremendously important tool for the nation’s business
community.
Like most other newspapers throughout the country, the city’s press
began shifting away from political sources of funding and overt partisan
attacks in the 1870s and 1880s, embracing advertising and circulation based
business models. The formation of the Editors and Publishers Association of
Missouri (later the Missouri Press Association) in 1867 suggests a nascent
sense of professionalism and commercialism existed among the city and
state’s newspaper owners and editors.
A LEGEND IS BORN
Although the name that made the group infamous, “The Big Cinch,”
was not coined until the early twentieth century, its alleged members rose to
60 Primm, 1981, p. 160, pp. 175-‐176.
32 [Type text] [Type text]
prominence around the Civil War. Opportunism and corruption flourished,
writes historian Julian Rammelkamp, in an “era of untrammeled
individualism” that permitted the city’s elite to take advantage of the city’s
rapid post-war growth by forming monopolies on street railways and other
utilities.61
Totaling about twenty members, the “Big Cinch” was thought to
encompass the leaders of the city’s financial institutions, industry, and other
prominent businesses (including newspapers) that more or less dominated the
commerce, municipal offices, policymaking, and social affairs of the city.62
An article in published in The Iconoclast around 1898, “Behind The Scenes In
St. Louis,” was likely the first widely circulated description of this group. Its
pseudonymous author portrays the men, including street railway magnates
James Campbell and Julius S. Walsh, politician and businessman David R.
Francis, ward boss Edward Butler, and other well-known St. Louisans, as
“local nobility” who possessed everything “worth owning,” bought local
politicians “like cattle,” and could “crush anyone” who acted against them.63
Historian Alexander Scot McConachie, the first contemporary scholar
to investigate the validity of the “Big Cinch” image, concludes that although
some concentration of commercial power, through common interest in local
companies and banks, was held by a small group of leading figures, the image
was largely a parable furthered by the Post-Dispatch and other writers at the
61 Rammelkamp, 1967, p. 27 62 For a comprehensive look at the financial realities behind the “Big Cinch” legend, see Alexander Scot McConachie’s 1976 dissertation. The work does not contribute substantially to knowledge on connections between this group and St. Louis journalism. 63 Brann, 1919, pp. 205-‐206.
33 [Type text] [Type text]
time.64 The reason, he asserts, was that Pulitzer wanted revenge for his
abandonment as a nominee for Congress in 1880 by ward boss Edward Butler
and some of the city’s leading members.65 McConachie’s research was also
first in affirming the implication of the “Big Cinch” legend that most of the
city’s newspapers, excluding the Post-Dispatch, were owned by or financially
influenced in some way by these figures. In his opinion, however, this group
did not completely control these newspapers.66
The Post and Dispatch, later the Post-Dispatch, was founded in 1878
by Pulitzer and a partner as a Democratic “organ of thought and truth.”67 The
Hungarian newspaperman originally intended the paper to advance his own
political ambitions and views. Shortly after taking ownership of the paper,
Pulitzer set his mind on running for Congress. Though relatively well-known
in St. Louis politics and society, in order to secure the party’s nomination,
Pulitzer had to secure the confidence and support of “The Dark Lantern,” an
elite group of local politicians. Irish ward boss Edward Butler was the group’s
strong-arm grunt, ensuring elections went their way through voter intimidation
and deploying vote repeaters, or “Indians,” to polling places. Pulitzer
allegedly paid off the “Dark Lantern” to gain their favor.68
64 See McConachie, 1976, Chapter II. 65 McConachie, 1978, pp. 144-‐145 66 McConachie, 1976, p. 153 67 "Other 3 -‐ No Title." St. Louis Post and Dispatch 24 Dec. 1878: 2. 68 Rammelkamp, 1967, p. 151; Morris, 2010, p. 184. These authors seem to differ on their opinion of whether Pulitzer actually paid a fee or not. Rammelkamp presents significant evidence indicating that a payoff was made, but the historian points out that it is impossible to actually know. Morris, whose own research provides further period evidence affirming the Pulitzer payoff, argues that there would be no reason for him not
34 [Type text] [Type text]
Edward Butler came to St. Louis in the 1850s and established several
blacksmithing shops in the city. From the end of the Civil War into 1900,
Butler expanded his political sway from influencing votes in working class
wards with brute force in early years to existing as a well known, almost
status quo Democratic party figure, although his allegiances shifted if paid
enough. Butler was the man everyone in St. Louis, from the mayor to
murderers, called to get things done. His help came with a “fee,” either
monetary or in the form of favors.
Just before the primary, Pulitzer’s opponent for the nomination,
William Hyde, editor of the Missouri Republican, used his financial resources
to coerce Butler and the “Dark Lantern” into abandoning its backing of his
rival publisher’s ticket. Rammelkamp and McConachie assert that Pulitzer’s
betrayal in his 1880 run for Congress resulted in a shift in the Post-Dispatch’s
editorial policy to a new form of journalistic “independence.”69 Casting aside
the idea of using the paper for political influence, the Post-Dispatch
transformed itself into a persistent watchdog against corruption and crimes by
local officials and the city’s powerful public service corporations, and the
representative of the St. Louis’ small business and middle class
communities.70
Thus began the Pulitzer paper’s pointed exposures of wealthy tax-
dodgers, the activities of the “Dark Lantern,” and corruption, vice and crime
to have made a payoff, as it was a common local practice at the time. See footnote 184 p. 502. 69 Rammelkamp, 1967, pp. 151-‐156; McConachie, 1976, p. 144 70 Rammelkamp, 1967, ibid.
35 [Type text] [Type text]
from the tenement houses and gambling dens of the St. Louis’ working class
to the stately homes and high rise offices of the city’s elite. At the same time,
the publisher worked to increase circulation in the city and focus content on
reflecting the growing metropolis’ needs and interests.71 Though its brashness
certainly raised eyebrows in the community, the new methods worked.
Circulation grew and the paper increased its advertising rates by about 20
percent each year during the 1880s.72
While his paper enjoyed success and popularity in St. Louis,
personally, Pulitzer did not. The editor was contemplating a move to New
York, where his brother was working as a newspaperman, when the 1883
killing of Alonzo Slayback, a prominent local attorney, in the Post-Dispatch
newsroom by his managing editor likely sped up his decision. Angered by
cards slipped into the paper that defamed his friend, a common form of
political attack at the time, the attorney stormed into the newsroom
confronting the editor, who later claimed he shot Slayback in self-defense.
The attorney was a popular figure; the community was outraged. Pulitzer left
St. Louis with his managing editor to take over the New York World.
His departure left the paper with a tenuous legacy. The World became
his primary focus and, though the paper retained the hallmarks of Pulitzer’s
editorial policies, it was largely left to its own devices as long as it remained
profitable. The term of Charles H. Jones as editor and partial owner of the
Post-Dispatch marked a period when the paper swerved from its
71 Rammelkamp, 1967, p. 163 72 Rammelkamp, 1967, p. 203
36 [Type text] [Type text]
“independent” agenda, functioning as a organ for Jones’ political ideology of
“Free Silver”73 and candidates he supported.
THE LOCAL PRESS AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY
There were five major English-language daily newspapers in St. Louis
at the beginning of the twentieth century: The Globe-Democrat, an
established, nationally renowned Republican paper; the Republic, a
Democratic daily descending from the first paper published west of the
Mississippi; another Democratic broadsheet, the Star, owned by a former
congressman; and the “yellow”74 adolescents, the Post-Dispatch and the
Chronicle, of the Scripps-McRae chain. All sold their daily papers for a
penny.
Many considered the Globe-Democrat, a Republican paper despite its
mismatched name, the city’s leading daily. A prominent advertising executive
at the time described it as “first in St. Louis journalism,” and one of America’s
73 The “Free Silver” movement was a national effort by Democrat William Jennings Bryan to form the basis of the nation’s monetary system to a silver standard. Pulitzer, a “gold bug” Democrat, was opposed to this, wanting to create a gold standard to give the country’s currency value. Morris, 2010, p. 293. 74 Numerous observers during the period of study (For example, see: Bates, 1897; Wilcox, 1900; Current Advertising, 1902) refer to Pulitzer’s dailies, the World and Post-Dispatch, and the papers of Scripps-‐McRae, including the Chronicle, as “yellow” newspapers, owing to their sensational stories and headlines, mass appeal, and large amount of classified and medical ads. The Post-Dispatch was indeed sensational at times by anyone’s standard. Yet the term isn’t wholly accurate, as the newspapers were not merely pandering to public curiosities for their own perverse delight, but applying some new business and content concepts that became industry standards in the twentieth century. Therefore this thesis uses quotation marks around the term “yellow” to challenge the validity of the term’s inherent negativity. Similarly, quotation marks are used around the term “independent” in regard to the Post-Dispatch’s editorial policy, because the newspaper’s use of the term regarding itself was largely a marketing ploy that aimed to stake out new ground in a highly politicized newspaper market. Pulitzer’s paper was more independent than most newspapers in the city, but was not truly free of partisanship.
37 [Type text] [Type text]
four “greatest newspapers” for the “thinking classes.”75 The paper had very
high circulation throughout Missouri and other states; its priority was not on
local news.
The merger of St. Louis dailies the Globe and the Democrat was the
product of the whiskey ring scandals of the 1870s. William McKee, the
Globe’s main owner, helped organize a scheme to reelect President Grant by
launching a national network of illegal distilleries, whose non-taxed profits
were used to bolster campaign coffers and the organizers’ own wealth.
Dismayed with their actions, another part owner bought the shares of McKee
and another partner, Douglas Houser. Using funds from the whiskey ring,
McKee and Houser founded the Globe as a pro-Grant organ and, in the mid
1870’s, purchased the Democrat, merging the dailies into the Globe-
Democrat.76
Apparently holding a grudge, their former partner eventually brought
the whole operation down by providing crucial information to Treasury
Department officers who raided numerous distilleries and arrested the ring’s
organizers. The Globe-Democrat, in an odd twist of fate, took the lead among
the nation’s press in exposing the scandal. McKee went to prison, but was
later pardoned. In the wake of the scandal the paper recreated itself into a
respectable conservative Republican paper that enjoyed regional influence and
national notoriety.
75 Bates, 1897, pp. 227-‐228 76 Primm, 1981, p. 319.
38 [Type text] [Type text]
The Republic was the descendent of the first newspaper published west
of the Mississippi, the Missouri Republican, founded in 1808. Its name
changed in 1888 to reflect the paper’s development into an organ for the
Democratic Party. Toward the twentieth century the paper developed a
reputation as the mouthpiece for the local business elite, later known as the
“Big Cinch.” Former governor of Missouri David R. Francis, the paper’s
majority stockholder after 1893, was often named as a leader of the “Cinch.”
McConachie calls Francis the “most notable example” of the
connection of St. Louis’ financial elite to its newspapers, revealing Francis
occupied an immensely powerful position in St. Louis’ commercial life. The
politician owned a significant amount of shares in three prominent local
financial institutions.77 With his brother, he shared ownership of a grain
brokerage, Francis Brothers & Company. Charles W. Knapp, the Republic’s
publisher, owned shares in a local bank and was involved in a variety of civic
organizations and causes, including the organizing committee for the 1904
World’s Fair.78
Regardless of its management’s overt connections and favorable bias
to the city’s commercial and political elite, the Republic held some regard
within the newspaper industry. Knapp, its publisher, was president of the
American Newspaper Publisher’s Association for two years in the late 1890s,
and was involved in the leadership at the Associated Press and the Western
Associated Press.
77 McConachie, 1976, p. 365; p. 376; p. 382. 78 McConachie, 1976, p. 68
39 [Type text] [Type text]
At the same time Democratic politician David R. Francis purchased a
controlling interest in the Republic, former Republican congressman Nathan
Frank bought the majority of stock in the Star, established in 1884 as an
evening paper. Hiring a business manager from the World, M.J. Lowenstein,
Frank focused the paper’s efforts on bolstering circulation in the city and
providing news that appealed to conservative Republican St. Louisans.79
The Chronicle, part of E.W. Scripps and Milton McRae’s burgeoning
newspaper chain, appeared on the city’s streets in 1880 as the city’s first
penny paper. As the cheapest paper in St. Louis, the Chronicle, a morning
paper, rapidly increased its circulation, eventually forcing competitors to
lower its rates to one cent. Scripps’ imported brand of journalism, aiming to
appeal to the city’s working elements, did not catch on. Its circulation never
rivaled that of the Post-Dispatch, Globe-Democrat or Republic.
Advertising revenue in American daily and weekly newspapers grew
from $39 million in 1880 to $71 million in 1890, an 82 percent gain, observed
the American Statistical Association around 1900.80 Most advertising in daily
newspapers came from local sources. Retailers, financial institutions, real
estate firms, theatres, and other forms of entertainment purchased the bulk of
daily newspapers’ advertising space: with department stories representing the
largest local revenue source.81 But one of the most significant trends observed
at the turn of the century was the tremendous growth of national advertisers in
79 Bates, 1897, p. 245 80 Sherman, 1900, p. 2 81 Sherman, 1900, p. 1; p. 42
40 [Type text] [Type text]
dailies, from food products like baking powder, and railroad companies, to
patent medicines.82
Charles Austin Bates, a prominent New York advertising executive,
describes the advertisers of St. Louis in an 1897 book as “progressive and
enterprising,”83 The city’s largest advertisers at the time, according to Bates,
were six department stores – Scruggs, Vandervoort & Barney, Nugent’s,
Grand Leader, Barr’s, Crawford’s and the Famous. Although Bates mentions
that these companies did business with all five of the city’s leading papers, the
Post-Dispatch’s relationship with these advertisers was not defined. The
Globe-Democrat commanded the highest price from these clients followed by
the Republic, Bates reports, while the Chronicle and Star sold its space to the
department stores for lower, but rising, rates.84
The only challenge to the Globe-Democrat’s dominant financial
position among local newspapers, Bates notes, was from the Post-Dispatch in
classified advertising.85 Later, readers are told, “I don’t see how a general
advertiser of an average article could come into St. Louis and get the best
results without using the Globe-Democrat, Republic, Star, and for most things
add the Chronicle.”86 Although Bates declares the Post-Dispatch was it was
bringing in “a lower but increasing rate, the omission of the paper in
discussions of the quality of the city’s newspapers as advertising mediums in
82 Sherman, 1900, p. 1. 83 Bates, 1897, p. 225 84 Bates, 1897, p. 227 85 ibid 86 Bates, 1897, p. 226
41 [Type text] [Type text]
this nationally distributed book is striking. The explanation is likely that the
paper was in the midst of an organizational and financial upheaval when
Bates’ text was written.
Pulitzer was in the midst of a legal fracas to wrest controlling stock
interest and editorial jurisdiction of the paper from Charles H. Jones, a
newspaper owner and political mouthpiece for the “Free Sliver” movement.
Leaving St. Louis in 1883 to turn around the New York World, Pulitzer
continually toyed with the idea of selling his the Post-Dispatch. Newspaper
publisher and politician Charles H. Jones purchased a sizable interest in the
Post-Dispatch in 1895, agreeing to Pulitzer’s terms that the contract could be
annulled if profits stopped increasing.
Jones was already a notable, if somewhat unpopular, figure in St.
Louis journalism. The publisher bought shares of the Missouri Republican in
May 1888, soon changing its name to the St. Louis Republic. He served as its
editor for five years until his former political ally and friend, politician David
R. Francis,87 bought a controlling interest in the paper in 1893 to silence Jones
after a conflict between their wives caused the editor to publish slights against
Francis.88 A contemporary assessment of Jones surmises his removal from the
Republic was the result of his “agrarian-reform editorial policies,” a
combination of populist Pulitzer-style crusades, Jones’ personal political slant
87 Francis, a Democrat, was elected governor of Missouri with the Republic’s support prior to Jones’ ownership. He later became U.S. Secretary of the Interior and U.S. ambassador to Russia. 88 Chapin, 1920, pp. 167-‐168.
42 [Type text] [Type text]
and the stinging editorial bite of the partisan press, raising the ire of the
paper’s other conservative Democrat owners.89
Advocacy of “Free Silver” was one of the main sources of Pulitzer’s
contention with him, but repugnance within the community stemmed from
Jones’ bitter partisan attacks against prominent St. Louisans. Charles E.
Chapin, who served as city editor during Jones’ tenure, recollects in his
memoir that he was arraigned by the circuit court on criminal libel charges in
Jones’ stead after the publisher ordered staff to write a caustic article attacking
the president of the St. Louis Board of Education and then left town on
business. A “drunk and ugly” judge, linked somehow to the figure lambasted
by the paper, held a revolver under his bench during the entire proceeding
and, in open court, challenged the city editor to a duel, Chapin writes.90
Concerned for the city editor’s safety, the chief of the St. Louis Police
Department led Chapin back to the Post-Dispatch office and gave the city
editor his revolver, telling him “not to hesitate to use it” if the judge assaulted
him.91
Responding to another Jones-ordered article, David R. Francis
thundered into Jones’ office with his brother demanding a retraction. The
assistant city editor, Kinney Underwood, ran to a room adjacent to Jones’
office, divided by a glass wall, and leveled a revolver at the incensed
89 Graham, 1979, p. 788. 90 Chapin, 1920, p. 166 91 ibid.
43 [Type text] [Type text]
politician’s head, waiting for him to move.92 Jones and Francis agreed on a
retraction and no violence occurred, according to Chapin, but these incidents
during Jones’ tenure demonstrate the tenuous relationship that developed
between the Post-Dispatch and some of the city’s leading figures.
Assuming his term as editor and part owner of the paper, Jones was
told by departing editor Samuel Williams than an “anti-establishment”
editorial policy could lead to an advertising boycott by the local business
community.93 He ignored this advice and the paper’s editorial zeal under his
authority negatively impacted the paper’s business side. Chapin recalls that
Jones “drove all the advertisers away from the newspaper with his vicious
attacks.”94 St. Louis’ most prominent advertisers boycotted the paper and the
sales in the city slowed.95
In Pulitzer’s view, Jones was bad for business and a determent to his
paper’s original vision of political “independence.” Nobody wanted him
around; Jones was persona non grata. The Hungarian newspaper mogul
turned to the courts to remove the Floridian import from power in prolonged
litigation that eventually was decided by the Missouri state supreme court.
Pulitzer regained control of the paper by mid 1897. The Post-Dispatch
immediately make a clear split from politics and shifted back to its original
editorial policies.
NORTH AND SOUTH
92 Jones, 1920, p. 168 93 Graham, 1979, p. 791 94 Chapin, 1920, p. 170 95 Graham, 1979, p. 791
44 [Type text] [Type text]
Alongside St. Louis’ transformation into one of America’s largest
population and manufacturing centers was the development of its public
transportation system. Starting shortly before the Civil War as a system of
horse-drawn busses, or omnibuses, by the turn of the century there were
several hundred miles of electric streetcar tracks operated by more than a half
dozen companies across the city, ferrying hundreds of thousands of the city’s
masses to and from work every day. Besides rending an essential service to
the city, many of the city’s elite made their fortunes from investment, and
later the sale, of these systems.
As the logistics of operating and maintaining the city’s various lines
became increasingly complex — from the upkeep of power lines, rails, cars
and other equipment to negotiating labor disputes and municipal legislation
allowing development and expansion — there were moves to consolidate St.
Louis’ street car systems starting in the late 1890s. The business community
and sympathetic politicians portrayed the idea as a boon to the city’s working
class as the fusing of the competing lines would remove costly transfers and
ensure consistent service across the city. The Post-Dispatch eyed attempts at
street railroad consolidation with great suspicion, claiming “trusts” were
trumping the people’s interests in municipal politics by street railroad
franchises pushing favorable legislation through the channels of local
government.
The North and South bill, introduced into the Municipal Assembly in
1897, represented the first significant attempt to gain legal permission to begin
45 [Type text] [Type text]
consolidation of the city’s streetcar lines. It was also the Post-Dispatch’s
opening skirmish against the street railroad interests. Reporting on the bills
passage by the City Council in July 1897, the Post-Dispatch indicted the body
for bribery but failed to denounce specific officials or provide factual
evidence that crimes were committed.96 The city was “caught napping,” it
said, as the city’s representatives “gave away” dozens of miles of streets. As
Mayor Henry Ziegenhein and state legislators attempted to quash the bill
through the end of the year into early 1898, the paper continued to rail against
the “franchise grabbers.”
The paper also kept up allegations of bribery in the deal, its claims
backed, to some degree, by interviews with officials opposed to the legislation
and the grand jury testimony of a councilman who said he was offered $3,000
to vote on the bill.97 By the end of February the bill was vetoed by Mayor
Ziegenhein, ending the matter. But a new, similar bill was being drafted that
would again draw the paper’s attention to allegations of bribery. Only this
time, the Post-Dispatch would cover the proceedings differently and the
charges stuck.
96 “Big Grab For A Franchise” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 22 Jul. 1897:1. 97 For example, see “North And South Bill Rushed Through The Council” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 12 Feb. 1898:8.
46 [Type text] [Type text]
CHAPTER II: HISTORY OF THE POST-DISPATCH’S “CENTRAL
TRACTION” SCANDAL COVERAGE, 1898-1904
Oliver Kirby Bovard, a reporter for the St. Louis Star, walked into the
newsroom of the Post-Dispatch at 513 Olive Street in early April 1898 with
two objectives in mind: One, to sell an article alleging bribery in the passage
of the “Central Traction” bill that his own paper rejected; The other, to secure
a position on the Pulitzer paper.98
Introduced to the Municipal Assembly that March by Kansas City
banker Robert M. Snyder, the Central Traction bill gave a corporation the
ability to purchase and consolidate the city’s various streetcar companies, then
operating independently in various parts of the city, into a single monopoly
under a 50-year franchise. No other street railway company was allowed such
lengthy franchises, the ability to absorb competitors, or given authorization to
cover so much of the city’s land. Its lineage traced back to the failed “North
and South” bill of 1897. As the bill went through the upper and lower houses
of Municipal Assembly, the Post-Dispatch did not claim outright that bribery
was involved, but chided the public officials for permitting such
unprecedented privileges.99
The reporter, just shy of twenty-six years old, had the facts of the
bribery – names, amounts, the narrative and roles played – but would not
98 See Johns, 1937, p. 146; Dilliard, 1948, p. 12; Markham, 1954; pp. 1-‐2; 99 For example, see: "City Hall Deadlock." St. Louis Post-Dispatch 19 Mar. 1898: 4.
47 [Type text] [Type text]
name his sources, or indicate how he obtained the information.100 “What
makes you think the Post-Dispatch would be interested in this story?” city
editor Claude H. Wetmore asked Bovard. “It’s obviously not true or your own
newspaper would have accepted it.”101 Bovard told Wetmore the Star did not
want the article “for political reasons,” as its owner, Nathan Frank, was active
locally in the Republican Party, then the majority in city government, and the
article could potentially hurt his interests.102
The facts gathered by Bovard were unconfirmed, but apparently
convincing enough for Wetmore to agree to not only publish the article, but
also hold it for a week while Bovard gave notice to the Star.103 But
competition was fierce among the city’s papers and, despite his agreement, the
Post-Dispatch city editor ended up publishing some of Bovard’s information
several days later.104 The young reporter’s first article in the Post-Dispatch
appeared on page six on April 13.105 Perhaps due to cautious editing by
100 The identities of these sources, according to this author’s research, are undocumented. This seems natural, given journalists’ traditional fealty to the protection of sources providing sensitive information. 101 Markham,, 1954, p. 1. The dialogue, according to Markham’s citation, comes from an undated manuscript by O.K. Bovard titled “The Exposure by the St. Louis Post-‐Dispatch of the Central Traction Boodle Scandal in April, 1898” in the Post-‐Dispatch Reference Library. The author of this paper attempted to obtain a copy of this document in late 2010, but the current staff at the Reference Library was unable to locate it, informing the author that many older internal documents were “purged” in the 1970s and 1980s. However, this story seems to be confirmed in the duel autobiography of Orrick Johns and George S. Johns, editor in charge of the Post-‐Dispatch from 1898 to [YEAR], p. 146. 102 Markham, 1954, ibid. 103 Markham, 1954, p. 2 104 ibid. Bovard’s biographer speculates Wetmore printed some of Bovard’s information before the week passed out of anxiety that the Star or another competitor would print it first. 105 Markham, 1954, p. 6
48 [Type text] [Type text]
Wetmore, the words “bribery,” “graft” or their colloquial synonym ‘boodle,’
were not used. Its contents were startling nonetheless.
This first article decried the passage of the bill over the mayor’s veto,
framing the legislation as a giveaway of public property and listing those who
voted in favor of the measure in an “Ignoble Roster.” A small item on the
editorial page, titled “MARK THEM,” also identified the names of members
of the City Council and House of Delegates that voted for the Central Traction
“franchise steal,” instructing the public to “mark these men as public servants
who betrayed their trust.”106 Stories over the next few days levied charges
against officials, but the texts were short on specific evidence.
Although Mayor Henry Ziegenhein promptly vetoed the bill, the
Municipal Assembly was able to override the mayoral rejection and move the
bill through using powers granted in the city’s charter. After the countermand,
the Post-Dispatch delivered its first real servo on April 18. Bovard made page
one, leading:
“The Post-Dispatch herewith presents facts concerning the manner in
which the Central Traction bill was passed over the Mayor’s veto. The
facts are such as to warrant immediate investigation by the grand
jury.”107
The reporter’s detailed, chronological narrative follows the movements
of an unidentified “boodle middleman” distributing $75,000 in bribes, listing
the names of each official and the amount they received as they were paid off.
106 "Article 3 -‐-‐ No Title." St. Louis Post-Dispatch 14 Apr. 1898: 4. 107 “Bribery In House And Counc [sic]” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 18 Apr. 1898: 1; Markham, 1953, pp. 6-‐7
49 [Type text] [Type text]
It is unclear whether the reporter directly observed the payoffs or if he
obtained the information second-hand. The article does not identify the
paper’s source for the information, but implies, at least in the case of the City
Council, the amounts of payoffs were common knowledge. Hangers on in
City Hall discussed the amount of money councilmen were paid “as much as
brokers talk of the rise and fall in wheat, or gas, or tobacco stock,” Bovard
writes.108 Regardless, one would think the Post-Dispatch was going out on a
limb publishing an article with no identified sources in an era when libel cases
were rampant. The young reporter’s tone was confident at least:
“The Post-Dispatch knows who the true promoters are, and when the
facts are revealed St. Louisans will be astonished to ascertain who
really have seized control of this city.”109
Page two carried the denials and reactions of some accused officials. A
short item related that the interior of an alderman’s ice cream parlor was
undergoing renovations, inferring its funding came from his Central Traction
bribe. The president of the Union Depot Railway, John Scullin, known
opponent of the Central Traction bill, praised the paper, calling its coverage “a
great public service.” In another piece, Delegate Henry L. Weeke greeted a
reporter in his butcher shop saying, “I suppose the Post-Dispatch want to
increase its circulation.” Claiming no knowledge of payoffs, Weeke said, “If
any of the boys got anything, they may have earned it.”110
108 Ibid 109 ibid 110 “Mr. Weeke’s Philosophy” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 18 Apr. 1898: 2.
50 [Type text] [Type text]
On the editorial page, the paper urged the mayor and law enforcement
authorities to investigate the matter, reassuring officials and the public that the
“Post-Dispatch can supply the names of witnesses who have full knowledge
of the corrupt transaction.”111 The crusade was on. After the issue was
published, the paper’s managing editor, George S. Johns, suspected his life
was in danger.112
After days of stories alleging wrongdoing and editorial prods to take
action, Judge William Zachritz responded to the Post-Dispatch’s coverage by
ordering the grand jury to investigate the paper’s charges. The jury was given
a proviso: If the allegations proved false, the court would be required to
charge the Post-Dispatch with criminal libel.113 “What construction can be
placed upon these instructions except that they are a warning to the newspaper
press of St. Louis that it must keep its hands off municipal corruptionists?”
rumbled the Post-Dispatch in an editorial two days after the order.114
This charge seems to have rung more or less true. Numerous officials
and other witnesses were interviewed over several days, but no indictments
were made when the grand jury reported its findings on May 18. On the other
hand, no charges of libel were filed against the Post-Dispatch. While the
paper refused the assistant circuit attorney’s request to reveal its sources, the
jury told Judge Zachritz they were “morally certain” of some officials’ guilt
111 “Punish the Boodlers” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 18 Apr. 1898: 4. 112 Johns, 1937, p. 146 113 “City Hall Boodlers Will Be Investigated By The Grand Jury” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 25 Apr. 1898: 3; “Judge Zachritz’s Charge” St. Louis Republic. 26 Apr. 1898: 9. Genealogy Bank. 6 Apr. 2011. 114 “A Regular 10 O’Clock Edition” St. Louis Post-‐Dispatch. 27 Apr. 1898:4.
51 [Type text] [Type text]
and knew “witness after witness” lied, according to the Post-Dispatch’s story
on page two that day.115 The Republic’s coverage of the report was tucked
away on page 14, its only references to the bribery investigation contained in a
sub headline and one sentence in the third paragraph that flatly said that no
members of the Municipal Assembly were indicted.116
The grand jury’s failure to disprove the Pulitzer paper’s reporting was
a victory of sorts. The Post-Dispatch was not indicted for criminal libel and, to
the author’s knowledge, no figure named in the articles filed action for libel.
Still, the paper’s allegations were not necessarily proven either. In the months
following most stories on municipal corruption would be relegated to the
hinter-pages for some time as a war with Spain started, taking precedence as
the biggest news of the year.
Meanwhile at the state capitol in Jefferson City, lawmakers opposed to
the consolidation of the city’s street railway lines attempted to nullify the
Central Traction franchise claiming the measure conflicted with the Julian
Law, state legislation that prohibited the merging of utility companies vital to
the public’s welfare, like public transportation and electricity firms. A Post-
Dispatch news article called the move as “the only hope of escape in St. Louis
from the clutches of the Central Traction octopus.”117 The state Supreme
Court declared the Julian Law unconstitutional in November, opening the
gates for the formation of street railroad monopolies in Missouri. As the year
115 “Work Of The Grand Jury” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 18 May. 1898: 2. 116 “The Grand Jury Makes Its Report” St. Louis Republic. 18 May, 1898: 14. 117 “First Battle For The People” St. Louis Post-‐Dispatch. 8 May. 1898: 30.
52 [Type text] [Type text]
drew to a close, financiers behind the Central Traction franchise purchased
two streetcar lines and two other firms merged, taking the number of transit
operating in the city and suburbs from six to four.
AFTER THE BOODLE RUSH
From 1899 to the turn of the century the Post-Dispatch cautiously
approached the allegations of corruption in street railway legislation and other
local government affairs. There was no shortage of news articles and editorial
page rants asserting wrongdoing, but the paper’s charges were taciturn in
comparison with its rigorous, comprehensive reporting of the Central Traction
bill’s original passage and its fallout.
As the Central Traction bill moved through the channels of of local
and state government, indications of corruption often emerged, yet references
to bribery in news articles were glossed over or consigned to lower
paragraphs. Coverage lacked substantive facts, credible sources, and perhaps
most curiously, neglected investigative reporting. Given the inclination to dig
deep was firmly ingrained in Pulitzer’s two papers, it is possible that
significant financial pressures were exerted against the Post-Dispatch —
potential circulation loss, threats of libel action or friction with advertising
clients — limiting their willingness to pursue stories of corruption in earnest
during this period.
In the paper’s battle for supremacy of the local newspaper market, the
Pulitzer paper was not shy of singing its own praises. In an editorial on
Christmas Day, 1898 readers were told the Post-Dispatch was “the best local
53 [Type text] [Type text]
paper published in St. Louis and read by everybody who wants reliable home
news,” before mentions of the paper’s exclusive afternoon Associated Press
dispatches, affiliation with the New York World, and its correspondents
throughout Missouri and surrounding states.118 Circulation in the city
represented a major priority.
However much its columns gloated of its prosperity, in reality the
paper’s future remained uncertain. Though the paper was making a comeback
following Jones’ tenure, the Post-Dispatch was not Pulitzer’s priority and the
publisher mulled over offers to sell the property. The Republic’s publisher
Charles Knapp approached Pulitzer’s business managers in early 1899
attempting to purchase the Post-Dispatch. Though Pulitzer was somewhat
weary of departing with the St. Louis daily, Morris’ research suggests Knapp
sought to capitalize on Pulitzer’s well-known financial issues stemming from
the effort to expel Jones and the World’s recent dips in circulation.119 It is
possible that the proposed sale was not just a business venture: Given the
Republic’s notoriety as a the organ of the “Big Cinch,” and the reputation of
its principal owner, David R. Francis, as the corrupt cadre’s leader, the offer
could have merely been an attempt to silence the crusading paper.
Pulitzer’s interest was perked. The Republic’s publisher negotiated for
several days with a World business manager and made a personal visit to
Pulitzer. Discussions were fruitless. A memo sent by the business manager to
Pulitzer a year later alluded that Pulitzer’s failure to understand the financing
118 “The Story Of The Post-‐Dispatch’s Twenty Successful Years” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 25 Dec. 1898: 26 119 Morris, 2010, p. 346.
54 [Type text] [Type text]
measures of Knapp’s proposal led to the sale’s flop, Morris’ inquiry notes.120
It is unclear whether the reporters and editors of the Post-Dispatch were aware
of these negotiations, but journalists working for the Pulitzer paper likely had
to maintain a balancing act of pleasing Pulitzer’s editorial whims and business
managers while conforming to local newspaper market norms.
Coverage of legislation related to street railway consolidation
continued. In order to merge the various lines it purchased under Missouri
state law, Brown Bros., financiers of the Central Traction franchise, lobbied in
Jefferson City to pass a bill permitting streetcar concerns across the state to
consolidate.121 After Gov. Lon V. Stephens signed the bill into law in late
July, the United Railways syndicate merged their properties over the summer,
operating under the name the St. Louis Transit Co. from then on. Hence, there
were two competing streetcar companies careening the city’s streets at the
turn of the century.
A FUSE IS LAID
Fear of libel suits or loss of advertisers may have prompted the Post-
Dispatch to temper direct allegations of bribery and corruption in local street
railway legislation, but there was another major factor at play: From May
through August 1900 several thousand streetcar workers staged a strike
against the city’s two franchises, not only crippling the city’s residents and
slowing commerce. This was the story of the year.122
120 Morris, 2010, p. 517 121 “A Brown Bros. Bill” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 3 May. 1899: 3. 122 Markham, 1954, p. 31;
55 [Type text] [Type text]
The consolidation of the city’s various streetcar companies into two
systems – the St. Louis and Suburban Railway and the United Railways
Company -- also impacted the pay rates and bargaining power of the lines’
workers.123 During the unrest, strikers and sympathizers severed or shellacked
the streetcars’ power lines, tipped over trolleys, dynamited rails, and violently
confronted imported “scab” workers and whoever dared take the
strikebreaking cars. Women who rode the “scab” cars faced the threat of
assault and having their clothes torn off.124 Stones, bricks, and other objects
were regularly thrown at the cars as they made their way down the city’s
streets. It seemed as though violence could ferment at any time across the city.
Tensions between social strata also surfaced as the working class
tended to support the plight of the strikers while the upper classes denounced
the efforts of the unions and strikers as a detriment to the city’s commercial
life.125 That the middle class’ sympathies were split is evidenced by the fact
that the Post-Dispatch, this group’s supposed representative, sided with the
strikers. Class frictions peaked when the state legislature authorized the
formation of an armed 2,500 member “Posse Comitatus” composed of upper
and middle class St. Louisans.
Scholars consider the strikes as an incidental catalyst leading to
exposures of the “Big Cinch” in 1902: Attorney Joseph W. Folk’s assistance
in the successful arbitration of the labor conflict thrust him into the limelight
123 See “Rumors Of A Strike” St. Louis Post-‐Dispatch. 24 Sept. 1899: 10. 124 For example, see “Warrant For Mrs. Thompson” St. Louis Post-‐Dispatch. 5 Jun. 1900: 1. 125 Piott, 1978, pp. 6-‐7
56 [Type text] [Type text]
as a popular public figure, later a major factor in his election as circuit
attorney.126 It also represented a moment, historian Steven Piott writes, when
average St. Louisans realized that the public’s rights and property were being
infringed upon by the street railroads and other consolidated utility
companies.127
On Election Day in November Joseph W. Folk was elected circuit
attorney along with fellow Democrat Rolla Wells as mayor. Campaigning on
the promise of a reformed “New St. Louis,” Wells, a street railway and steel
magnate and son of a former congressman, was firmly entrenched in the upper
class echelons of St. Louis. Edward Butler’s political machine selected both
men as candidates, helping them secure a majority on Election Day by
sending his “Indians,” or vote repeaters, to polling places.128 Folk was
unproven in politics aside from briefly serving as president of the Jefferson
Club, a local Democratic organization affiliated with Butler’s machine.
Nevertheless, his notoriety from the settlement of the strikes and
recommendations from prominent party members made the attorney seem a
suitable choice.
The Post-Dispatch’s editorial empathy for the strikers had financial
and organizational impacts. Circulation dipped, resulting in the removal of
editor in charge George S. Johns from most news-related duties and the
126 Circuit Attorney was a local period term for District Attorney. Piott, 1978, p. 15; Primm, 1981, pp. 380-‐381. 127 Piott, 1978, p. 16. 128 Wetmore, 1904, p. 24
57 [Type text] [Type text]
resignation of city editor Claude H. Wetmore.129 Harry L. Dunlap, culled from
the Republic, filled the managing editor position and the enterprising former
Star reporter Oliver K. Bovard became city editor.
After Wetmore quit, managers recommended Bovard to fill the city
editor position. Reports to Pulitzer, according to Markham’s research, lauded
Bovard for his view of St. Louis as a “news center” and his skill and ambition
in covering a wide array of local news.130 Traditionally, afternoon and evening
papers rewrote and expanded morning papers’ local stories. As city editor,
Bovard immediately enacted efforts to challenge the morning dailies’
dominance over local coverage by taking the lead on big stories and hitting
territories and issues that competitors ignored or did not have the resources to
cover.131 Despite these undertakings, general manager Florence D. White
wrote Pulitzer in December, according to Markham’s research, remarking that
city editor Bovard and managing editor Dunlap favored straight reporting
instead of proactive, Pulitzer-style crusades.132
Attitudes on newsgathering apparently differed among city editor
Bovard and some of his superiors. Based on the evidence above, it seems that
some of Pulitzer’s managers considered crusades not only as an important part
of the paper’s public service duty but likely also as a necessary element of its
financial success. Bovard and other editors, on the other hand, appeared to see
traditional, Pulitzer-styled crusades as sensational and a waste of the paper’s
129 Markham, 1954, p. 33. 130 Markham, 1954, pp. 34-‐35. 131 Markham, 1954, pp. 35-‐36 132 Markham, 1954, pp. 36-‐37
58 [Type text] [Type text]
resources. They were willing to pursue investigative campaigns when a
massive scandal was obvious, but the editors were apparently weary of
creating news. If journalists followed the natural currents of the news, the
stories that emerged organically would be startling or engaging enough
without having to produce sensations. At any rate, the Bovard method
stuck.133
Historian James Markham speculates that certain editors and managers
expressed criticism of Bovard’s work in an attempt to gain Pulitzer’s favor by
making themselves appear more competent than the city editor.134 Decades
later, noted journalist and editor Irving Dilliard described Bovard, the paper’s
managing editor from 1908 to 1938, as a “one-man school of journalism” that
developed a reputation as “the editor who held himself aloof from the business
office, who took satisfaction in demonstrating that an advertiser enjoyed no
special privileges in the news columns.”135
Journalism and the newspaper industry during this period were still in
a transitional state, moving away from partisan funding and its accompanying
editorial bias, to politically neutral content to draw mass audiences and
provide an optimal advertising medium. An academic survey of American
newspapers published in summer 1900 dubbed St. Louis a “notable centre of
yellow journalism,” epitomized by the Post-Dispatch and Scripps-McRae’s
Chronicle. Maintaining that all five of its leading dailies displayed “yellow”
133 Bovard, who served as the Post-‐Dispatch’s managing editor from 1908 to 1938, is considered by many as one of the greatest editors in the history of American newspapers. 134 Ibid, p. 37. 135 Dilliard, 1948, p. 30.
59 [Type text] [Type text]
attributes, scholar Delos F. Wilcox’s research found that the St. Louis papers,
in comparison with other cities’ dailies, contained meager amounts of retail
ads, literature and reprints of articles, editorials and letters to the editor, while
stories on crime and vice, medical ads and illustrations were abundant.136
Given that St. Louis was a major center for production and retail sales
of clothing, shoes, and other consumer goods, this is noteworthy. Retail ads
were primarily local in nature, purchased by businesses situated in a city’s
commercial district or within the paper’s circulation range. If Wilcox’s is
correct, this indicates that the press of St. Louis was not dependent on
advertising revenue from department stores and other local retailers. In all
probability, medical ads were one of the Post-Dispatch’s most stable forms of
revenue, regardless of its editorial stance. Want ads were an important
circulation booster for the Post-Dispatch, as it printed more of these ads than
any other local daily.137 People living in St. Louis, like any other metropolitan
area, needed to find or offer employment, housing, and other goods and
services in this section. The largest and most plentiful “medical
advertisements” in the Post-Dispatch were for nationally distributed patent
medicines, rather than local companies or doctors, whose ads were usually a
two square column inch box tucked among the theatre notices.138 In this
author’s view, Wilcox was not really describing the “yellow” methods of St.
136 Wilcox, 1900, p. 72 137 Current Advertising, 1902: p. 19 138 Based on the author of this thesis’ observations of Post-‐Dispatch issues in 1898, 1900, 1902.
60 [Type text] [Type text]
Louis papers, as much pointing out their business models in connection with
its editorial content.
After the blood-splattered spring and summer, the owners of the St.
Louis and Suburban Street Railway Company, the smaller of the city’s two
streetcar systems, attempted to get a bill passed through the Municipal
Assembly allowing the system to expand onto extremely valuable
thoroughfares. The legislation, known as the Suburban bill, passed, allowing
the company to build tracks on the city’s western edge to Union Station, then
a major national railroad terminal, and Forest Park, where the World’s Fair
would be held in 1904.
On the surface, this gave the company a competitive edge. But it was
well known that the owners of the St. Louis Transit company intended to
create a street car monopoly and that the Suburban system would be
eventually bought out. With this in mind, the owners of the Suburban
expanded their system in the hope of increasing the line’s value before the
sale.
THE NEW CIRCUIT ATTORNEY’S BACK-PAGE BEACON
Joseph W. Folk took office as circuit attorney just after the New Year.
Edward Butler soon visited Folk attempting dictate who would fill the
assistant attorney positions. The new circuit attorney would not oblige the
ward boss, naming the assistant circuit attorneys himself. This sent a blatant
61 [Type text] [Type text]
sign to Butler and other corrupt officials that Folk intended to take his duty
seriously.139
The newspapers and the circuit attorney remained relatively quiet on
allegations of municipal corruption until January 21, 1902, when a vague
article buried in the St. Louis Star prompted Folk to begin investigations into
bribery in street railway bills that eventually confirmed the Post-Dispatch’s
stories in 1898.
Folk noticed the item while browsing late editions of the city’s newspapers in
his office with Post-Dispatch reporter William C. McCarty, according to
Wetmore’s account.140 Mentioning no names or sources, the article hinted that
there was a dispute between a group of financiers and several members of the
Municipal Assembly over payment for a bribe to pass a street railway bill.141
Folk turned to the journalist, saying “If there be proper foundation for this
story it is well worth space on the front page, and it could carry splaying
headlines at that.”142 Folk’s message was clear: He would soon launch an
investigation, which promised to be a big story. While the Star only printed
vague rumors on a back page, Wetmore implies that Folk knew the Post-
Dispatch would publish information on investigations and condemn
wrongdoers.
The circuit attorney contacted the editor of the Star to learn the
identity of the article’s author. Reporter James M. “Red” Galvin went to
139 Primm, 1981, p. 382 140 Wetmore, 1904, p. 27. 141 Wetmore, 1904, pp. 27-‐28; Johns, 1937, p. 150; Primm, 1981, p. 385. 142 Wetmore, 1904, p. 27
62 [Type text] [Type text]
Folk’s office, telling the circuit attorney that the information was accurate, but
he did not know anything beyond the vague facts in the article.143 Reviewing
court documents on the two street railroad companies, Folk found vital clauses
of the Suburban bill were struck down after its passage, rendering it useless
for the company’s purposes.144 Therein was a motive for a conflict between
the bill’s promoters and legislators. Folk believed that this was the bill
referred to in the article, and each member of the Municipal Assembly, as well
as bank and street railroad officials, were subpoenaed on January 23. As the
witnesses appeared before the circuit attorney the next day, each denied
knowledge of “boodle” in the measure.
Facing the prospect of professional humiliation from issuing “false”
allegations against some of the city’s leading citizens, but sure of his hunch,
circuit attorney Folk decided to bluff. Folk called Charles H. Turner, president
of the St. Louis and Suburban system, and Philip Stock, a local businessman,
into his office on January 25, demanding they confess to bribery and testify
before a grand jury within forty-eight hours or face arrest. On January 27, less
than a week after the Star article was published, the two men admitted to the
scheme and agreed to turn state’s evidence. Warrants were soon issued for
numerous public figures and officials. Some of the accused fled the country.
While Folk investigated the Suburban bill, the Post-Dispatch wasted
no time reminding readers of its 1898 coverage of bribery in the Central
Traction bill’s passage. Under the headline of a page one article announcing
143 Wetmore, 1904, p. 28 144 Wetmore, 1904, p. 29.
63 [Type text] [Type text]
the a warrant for Suburban Railway Company director Ellis Wainwright’s
arrest on bribery charges, the paper printed a statement by Folk affirming its
role in the exposure. “The state will not rest with the Suburban investigation;
we have gone back to the CENTRAL TRACTION BOODLE SCANDAL,
which the POST-DISPATCH MADE PUBLIC four years ago,” states the
circuit attorney, promising to expose these and other crimes to light.145 The
news story’s fourth paragraph reiterates that the scandal was “published
exclusively” by the paper. Two days later a deputy sheriff announced that
Wainwright had fled the country and was thought to be in Egypt.146
THE CARDS FALL
The Star article gave circuit attorney Folk circumstantial, but sufficient
evidence that a crime had been committed in the passage of the Suburban bill,
laying the grounds for a full investigation. It emerged that assemblymen had
slipped “Red” Galvin of the Star details of the dispute to frighten promoters,
who refused to pay officials after the bill was annulled by a higher court, into
distributing their “boodle.” Using information collected by newspapermen
from the Star and the Post-Dispatch, the circuit attorney first gathered proof
of bribery in the Suburban bill then turned his attention to the Central Traction
bill. These queries led to indictments and investigations into other legislation
passed by graft, including ward boss Edward Butler’s city contracts for trash
removal and processing.
145 “Bribery Warrant For Ellis Wainwright” St. Louis Post-‐Dispatch. 29 Jan. 1902: 1 146 “All Would To Egypt Go” St. Louis Post-‐Dispatch. 31 Jan. 1902: 2
64 [Type text] [Type text]
For decades graft was omnipresent and constant in St. Louis’
municipal affairs, yet the city newspapers’ culture of silence and leading
figures’ efforts to preserve the status quo offered few opportunities for honest
prosecutors to secure grounds for indictments against corrupt officials and
promoters of legislation. No one would willingly talk how the city’s business
was actually carried out. The coverage of these two dailies provided the initial
groundwork for Folk’s prosecutions, knowledge that likely would have been
nearly impossible to obtain otherwise.
Most prosecutions related to these two street railway franchise bills
because Folk was able to easily trace the footprints of “boodle” already
outlined in the papers’ articles. On the first of February 1902, the grand jury
indicted Ellis Wainwright, Henry A. Nicolaus, Emil A. Meyensberg, Charles
Kratz, and John K. Murrell for bribery and Julius Lehmann and Henry A.
Faulkner for perjury. Over the next few months, these assemblymen went to
trial and other officials and figures were charged.
The Post-Dispatch eagerly followed the proceedings and offered Folk
support in editorials, if only to prove to the public the truth of its allegations in
1898. Its coverage of the first grand jury report confirming bribery in the
Central Traction measure illustrates this: A sub headline on the front page of
April 4 states, “Report Tomorrow Will Name the Men and the Sums They
Used in the $250,000 Steal Which the Post-Dispatch Exposed Four Years
Ago.”147 The grand jury, the article’s second paragraph read, would “give all
147 “Grand Jury Lays Bare Central Traction Grab” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 4 Apr. 1902: 1
65 [Type text] [Type text]
the details and figures showing how the notorious $250,000 Central Traction
grab was executed four years ago, which were exposed at that time by the
Post-Dispatch.”148
The next day, the grand jury’s opening remarks in the indictment of
the bill’s promoter Robert M. Snyder for bribery to Judge O’Neill Ryan the
next day, the jurors acknowledged the role of the press as a catalyst for the
investigations:
“The press of this city have from time to time published startling
stories of slush funds used in procuring legislative enactments for
private enrichment without compensation to the city. Many have
regarded these allegations as sensational merely, but we find the true
conditions of affairs almost too appalling for belief.”149
Outlining the Municipal Assembly’s “far-reaching and systematic
scheme,” the grand jury spared no harsh words for corrupt officials, reporting
that many members of the “organized gangs for plunder” were “utterly
illiterate and lacking in ordinary intelligence.”150
Nearly four years after the Post-Dispatch charged bribery in the
Central Traction legislation, its assertions were finally proven. The paper’s
back patting reminders of its work in 1898 implies that the Post-Dispatch
desired to use the incident to boost its reputation as an impartial, truth telling
representative of the public.
148 Ibid. 149 “’Almost Too Appalling For Belief’” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 5 Apr. 1902: 1. 150 Ibid.
66 [Type text] [Type text]
Meanwhile, the paper’s crusade against the municipal bribery
continued, moving coverage beyond the street railway franchises. An
investigation into ward boss Edward Butler’s alleged “boodle” in securing a
contract for his sanitation company to process the city’s trash became a major
focus of the paper’s crusade. As the case proceeded, Butler’s lawyers filed for
a change of venue on May 19, claiming negative press coverage on Butler was
so pervasive in St. Louis that potential jurors would be biased. Publishers and
editors from the city’s various newspapers, including business manager
William C. Steigers and editor in charge George S. Johns of the Post-Dispatch
were called on June 5 to testify on their papers’ intentions and biases in
covering Butler’s charges.
The Post-Dispatch’s account of the proceedings attempted to cast the
paper in the most positive light among its competitors. While the article
mentions that Stiegers appeared, his testimony is not included. The defense
attorney asked Johns if the paper’s portrayal of Butler was chiefly intended to
mold public opinion. The editor replied the paper’s “primary purpose” was “to
print the facts and give the public the true situation.”151 The defense asked
Johns again if the paper’s purpose was to mold public opinion. Johns replied
yes, saying the paper sought to form opinion “according to what we believe to
be sound public policy.”
Its “sound” public policy was not outlined in the article, but the
testimony by the paper’s editor suggests the Post-Dispatch was not merely
151 “City Prejudiced Against Butler Hawes Declares” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 5 Jun. 1902: 1.
67 [Type text] [Type text]
trying to use the coverage as a circulation boon, but to also affect real change
in St. Louis. The judge agreed with the defense and the trial was moved to
Columbia, Missouri, home of the state’s university.
“A JOURNALISTIC TRIUMPH”
While the paper dedicated ample resources to covering the court
proceedings, the Post-Dispatch also incurred expenses sending reporters in
search of two fugitives fleeing Folk’s charges in Mexico. The origin of its
involvement in efforts to retrieve officials John Murrell and Charles Kratz
varies from account to account. According to an undated Post-Dispatch
memorandum found by Markham, reporter Carlos S. Hurd states Folk
proposed the idea to reporter William C. McCarty, giving the Pulitzer paper
an exclusive story as a favor for its editorial support of his investigations.152
Another source says that George S. Johns proposed the idea to Folk at a
breakfast meeting shortly after the two officials were located in Mexico.153
Former city editor Claude H. Wetmore, who was not on the paper’s staff at the
time, writes that McCarty uncovered whereabouts of the two fugitives in
Mexico, gave the information to Folk and proposed that the paper send a
reporter to find them in order to secure an exclusive story for his paper.154
Regardless of who proposed the idea, it was mutually beneficial with
the circuit attorney having scant funding to conduct investigations and the
152 Markham, 1954, p. 43. 153 Johns, 1938, p. 151. Although the account in Wetmore (1904, p. 71) differs from Johns’ account and Markham’s research, Wetmore confirms that a meeting took place between Folk, Johns, and reporter Frank O’Neil on August 16 to discuss the plan. As in Johns’ account, O’Neil left the same night for Mexico. 154 Wetmore, 1904, pp. 69-‐71.
68 [Type text] [Type text]
Post-Dispatch looking for a competitive edge in local news. After reporter
Frank O’Neill left for Mexico, Johns met with Folk again, promising that the
Post-Dispatch would hold stories on Murrell’s return from Mexico until the
circuit attorney had secured a confession and issued warrants for corrupt
officials. The editor reminded Folk “when the time comes we want the
news.”155 The circuit attorney agreed and told Johns that he would notify him
when it was safe to publish.
O’Neill found the fugitives, convincing Murrell to return as a witness
for the state. Shortly before articles announcing the fugitive’s return were
printed, St. Louis Star reporter James “Red” Galvin, friend of many reporters
across the city’s dailies, entered Johns’ office. “Holy Joe is double crossing
you,” Galvin said, relaying to Johns that Folk, at that moment, was giving the
Post-Dispatch’s story to the Star’s managing editor.156
The afternoon of September 8, the Post-Dispatch’s front page blared
“POST-DISPATCH BRINGS MURRELL BACK.” The next day the paper’s
front page urged readers to contribute to a “Boodle Prosecution Fund” that the
paper started with an initial $500 donation.157 Contributions were accepted at
the Four Courts or the Post-Dispatch’s office.
The Post-Dispatch moved its offices from 513 Olive Street to 210
North Broadway in September. Shortly after moving into its new quarters, the
daily touted its prosperity in an article titled “Brief History Of A Phenomenal
155 Johns, 1937, p. 154. 156 Johns, 1937, p. 155. 157 “Boodle Prosecution Funds” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 9 Sept. 1902: 1.
69 [Type text] [Type text]
Journalistic Triumph,” telling readers the Post-Dispatch’s success stemmed
from its “conspicuous public service.”158 Linking the Post-Dispatch’s “first
achievement,” the exposure of tax evaders in the 1870s, to its “crowning
achievement,” the return of Murrell, the writer uses these two points to
illustrate the paper’s “career of unparalleled newspaper success.”159
THE MAN FROM THE EAST
Lincoln Steffens, an editor at the nationally circulated McClure’s
Magazine, arrived in St. Louis in 1902 on a tip that Joseph W. Folk’s hunt of
boodlers might make a good story. Steffens writes in his autobiography that,
as an editor, his intention was not to write the article himself. Folk proposed
Claude H. Wetmore, a Post-Dispatch city editor from 1898 to 1900, as a
candidate.160 The editor hired the local journalist and returned to New York.
Receiving Wetmore’s article in New York, Steffens thought that it
missed important facts and offered an overly lenient treatment of the accused
criminals. The editor added what he saw as the missing elements, including a
comparison of ward boss Edward Butler to Boss Tweed of New York, his
“bow” as a “graft philosopher.”161 Made aware of Steffens’ changes, Wetmore
protested, saying that his livelihood would be threatened if the edited article
158 “Brief History Of A Phenomenal Journalistic Triumph” St. Louis Post-‐Dispatch. 21 Sept. 1902: B2. 159 ibid. 160 Steffens, 1931, p. 372-‐373. 161 ibid.
70 [Type text] [Type text]
were published. The two compromised, Steffens writes, by agreeing to a
shared byline and Steffens’ pledge to acknowledge his changes publically.162
Steffens editing injected his own socio-political perspective and flair.
The result was a good versus evil narrative depicting a massive, decades-old
system of bribery in St. Louis in which a complacent public and press enabled
the city’s elite and Irish-American ward boss Edward Butler to plunder the
city’s resources and public money. The only one taking action against
corruption, they claim, was a young Circuit Attorney named Joseph W. Folk.
THE CITY’S PRESS CIRCA 1902
The same month as Steffens and Wetmore’s work in McClure’s, an
article analyzing of St. Louis’ dailies printed in Current Advertising, a trade
magazine owned by Charles Austin Bates, remarking on difficulty among
advertisers outside of St. Louis in discriminating between the papers’
circulation and other merits. Opening the piece, readers were warned that
every city’s “conditions and circumstances” impacted newspapers’ usefulness
as a medium for advertising:
“Largest gross circulation, past prestige, etc., do not necessarily settle
present supremacy. In fact, the paper that makes the most noise is not
always the most profitable medium. There is something to be said for
those that make up the body of the parade.”163
While the city’s three largest papers, the Post-Dispatch, Republic, and
Globe-Democrat offered “detailed, sworn statements” on circulation, the
162 ibid. 163 Current Advertising, 1902: p. 19.
71 [Type text] [Type text]
author observes that the term held little weight as there was no uniformity in
their presentation of tabulations. Doubt was cast on the figures given by the
papers, asserting the they were likely inflated to some extent because all of the
papers’ local circulation combined, 230,000, implied to the author that each of
St. Louis’ estimated 100,000 households received two newspapers every
day.164
Interviews with local advertisers said they generally preferred to do
business with the Post-Dispatch, Globe-Democrat and Republic. The
explanation of one of the city’s “leading tailors’ for doing business with these
papers perhaps gives insight on their appeal to advertisers: The Globe-
Democrat, he said, was used for its wide distribution across the Midwest and
western states, especially its large circulation in the southwestern states; the
Republic due to its reach in the areas immediately surrounding St. Louis; and
the Post-Dispatch because it had the largest circulation in general and was the
most popular paper in the city.165
The author also looked at the number of column inches purchased by
the city’s three largest department store ads in four dailies during the first half
of 1902, revealing the newspapers were in close competition for the stores’
business. Nathan Frank’s Star led the group, followed by the Post-Dispatch,
Globe-Democrat and then Knapp’s Republic.166 Though department store ads
were likely a significant portion of the Post-Dispatch’s revenue, the author’s
164 ibid, p. 20. 165 ibid, p. 20. 166 Ibid, p. 20. The Star had 148,781 lines; Post-‐Dispatch: 133,160; Globe-‐Democrat: 115,978; Republic, 112,444.
72 [Type text] [Type text]
data illustrates that paper did not limit its efforts to simply drawing the biggest
display ad clients. It bested competitors in street sales, number of editions,
total quantity of papers printed and classified ads.167
The Pulitzer paper was omnipresent on the city’s streets, the author
observed, with its first editions appearing “reasonably soon after the ink is
dried on the morning papers’ regular editions.”168 It was clear to the author
that the Post-Dispatch, vying for local dominance, presented a valuable
advertising medium. Yet he implies its crusading editorial policy was
somewhat of a financial liability for the paper:
“The Post-Dispatch is certainly the most aggressive of the St. Louis
newspapers and makes more noise than all the rest put together. Its
policy of ‘doing things’ necessarily makes it lead a ‘strenuous life.’ It
is the ‘human interest’ paper of St. Louis, or as some super-critical
people might say, ‘the yellow journal.’”169
It is not made clear how its editorial policy resulted in a “strenuous”
existence, but, given that the author obtained information from native sources,
their implication is palpable — taking the middle, quiet road was the safest bet
for St. Louis newspapers’ perpetuation. The Pulitzer paper’s crusades affected
local advertising patronage in the past, and indigenous opinions on its editorial
stance varied. However much the paper rubbed people the wrong way, it still
had the largest circulation within the city and immediate surrounding area at
167 Ibid, p. 20. 168 ibid, p. 19. 169 ibid, p. 23.
73 [Type text] [Type text]
the time. The author closes the article telling advertisers that the next two
years leading up to the 1904 World’s Fair would increase local papers’
circulation and advertising.
A CITY’S “SHAMELESSNESS” REVEALED
On November 14, Butler was found guilty in the attempted bribery of
two city Board of Health officials on November 14 and sentenced to three
years in prison. A higher court overturned the ruling in January 1903, finding
that the officials had no say in the city’s decision to award the contract to
Butler and thus the attempted pay offs could not have been bribes. Despite this
setback, the Post-Dispatch continued to eagerly cover Folk’s prosecutions and
program of reform throughout 1903 and 1904.
Joseph W. Folk’s career was made from the boodle prosecutions. The
circuit attorney Folk indicted a total of 24 men between 1902 and 1904 for
bribery, and/or perjury related to the Central Traction and Suburban bills and
other tainted municipal legislation.170 Folk only lost two cases; the first,
against Charles H. Turner and the other versus Edward Butler. While eight
members of the House of Delegates went to the penitentiary, most of the other
cases were thrown out or overturned on technicalities and errors.
Riding his circuit attorney position into election in November 1904 as
Missouri’s governor, Folk, the state’s youngest chief executive, developed a
reputation for fighting trusts, vice and election fraud.171 For some time, Folk
was considered as a possible candidate for Senate and even as a potential
170 Primm, 1981, pp. 390-‐391. 171 See Geiger, 1953, chapter VII.
74 [Type text] [Type text]
runner for president. Ascending the wave of reform alongside Folk, the Post-
Dispatch by this time was firmly entrenched as the city’s most read
newspaper.
Behind news and editorials on the investigations and trials, the paper’s
coverage contained underpinnings of an image of local oligarchical rule and
whiffs of class tension. Most of Folk’s indictments were directed against a
group of Municipal Assembly officials that the Post-Dispatch branded the
“boodle combine” who were generally from working class backgrounds and
often first or second-generation immigrants.172 Even Folk’s “big catch,”
Edward Butler, was an Irishman who was more apt to describe himself as a
blacksmith than a politician. Upper class figures that came under the beam of
Folk’s queries often turned state’s evidence, escaped prosecution through the
statute of limitations, or went on extended “vacations” abroad. To some, the
proceedings reeked of classism and hypocrisy.
Lincoln Steffens pointed out these sentiments out in his second article
on the city, “The Shamelessness of St. Louis,” in the spring of 1903, updating
readers on Folk’s trials and highlighting that, despite indictments and
convictions, conditions largely remained the same, as many of the accused
boodlers continued to hold office or at the heads of corporations.
“Shamelessness” stirred the resentment of “reforming” politicians and
some leading citizens who felt Folk and the Mayor had already cleaned the
city up. Mayor Rolla Wells told a Post-Dispatch reporter the public should
172 For example, see “Punish The Boodlers” St. Louis Post-‐Dispatch. 18 Apr. 1898: 4.
75 [Type text] [Type text]
hold a mass meeting to protest what he called exaggerations of corruption in
McClure’s and some metropolitan dailies on the east coast. Admitting
corruption was rampant in the city beginning in the 1870s, Wells said recent
prosecutions were evidence of progress. “The campaign of Mr. Folk against
municipal corruption, while advertising the face that corruption existed here,
has also shown that there has been marked improvement in conditions in the
past few years.”173
Vacationing in London in late August 1903, St. Louis Democratic
politician Harry B. Hawes wrote a letter to former governor and Republic
owner David R. Francis (who many considered to be the leader of the “Big
Cinch”) mentioning that he saw reprints of Steffens’ articles abroad. “Where
ever I have gone and Americans have found that I am from St. Louis, the
question of corruption in St. Louis was immediately made the topic of
conversation. The general impression being that St. Louis is the most corrupt
city in the World”.174 The Post-Dispatch received newspaper clippings from
Paris towards the end of 1903 revealing that Ellis Wainwright, wanted for
bribery, had become a close friend of the U.S. ambassador.175
The Pulitzer paper used Steffens’ article as an excuse to remind the
circuit attorney of his duty to pursue the criminals, no matter how high their
credentials. “[Folk] should expose and punish the influential citizens,
capitalists, and managers of great corporations who are involved in
173 “[Ma]Yor Declares [C]Ity Is Maligned [sic]” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 1 Mar. 1903: 12R. 174 Letter from Harry B. Hawes to David R. Francis, Aug. 20, 1903. David Rowland Francis Papers, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis. 175 “Ellis Wainwright Porter’s Cher Ami” St. Louis Post-‐Dispatch. 11 Nov. 1903: 1.
76 [Type text] [Type text]
corruption,” an editorial demanded after “Shamelessness” was published.176
The circuit attorney should prove, it said, “that there is not one law for the rich
and another for the poor.”177 The paper continued to support Folk, including in
his gubernatorial race in 1904.
THE SPECTER WITHIN THE COLUMNS
Folk’s investigations into corrupt legislation and the paper’s crusade
eventually extended to the top of branches of state government, forcing the
resignation of Gov. John A. Lee. Through coverage of the ambitious
politician’s actions, Missouri became an example of reform. The state was
also internationally branded for its “shameless” betrayal of the public trust. A
thick layer of the city’s culture of graft was washed away by the wave of
reform, but its foundation, the wealthy promoters of corrupt legislation,
remained confidently in place. Most of upper class figures targeted by Folk’s
investigations remained free.
A simple device was needed to explain to the masses why corruption
persisted in municipal affairs despite Folk’s shake up of the city and state.
Tapping into St. Louis’ decades-old legend of control by local “nobility,”
journalists began using the term “The Big Cinch,” to describe the handful of
leading citizens perceived to control the city. It is unclear who created the
name or when exactly it came into popular use. The Post-Dispatch regularly
used the term by the spring of 1905. The representation stuck, perhaps
reaching its zenith in 1911 when a local businessman published an
176 “Strike At The Top, Mr. Folk” St. Louis Post-‐Dispatch. 7 Mar. 1903: 4. 177 ibid.
77 [Type text] [Type text]
overdramatic rendering of the Central Traction exposures and Folk’s hearings
entitled “The Big Cinch.”
The Post-Dispatch had a major role in furthering this image in the first
decade of the new century. According to the paper’s standpoint, “Big Cinch”
interests controlled the city for its own selfish purposes, preventing St. Louis
from reaching its full potential as a great American metropolis. For example,
readers were told in 1907 that the “Big Cinch’s” monopolistic control of
public utilities and the city’s main bridge crossing the Mississippi “must be
defeated if St. Louis is to realize her opportunities.”178
The front page of the Sunday Post-Dispatch on March 29, 1908
carried the bold headline “WHAT IS THE BIG CINCH? DOES IT RULE ST.
LOUIS?” Statements of local officials and other notable figures in business,
journalism and politics throughout the paper give their take on the validity of
the legend. Its centerpiece was a lengthy article by local journalist William
Marion Reedy outlining the extent of the group’s power.
The city’s comptroller told readers that “forty, or fifty, or sixty men,
whose interests are to a certain extent identical, do control the city absolutely
— financially, politically and every other way.”179 Observing that every city a
set of men who dictate business and politics, a circuit court judge suggested
that the press and public opinion were a check of these figures’ power. “No
men or set of men, no matter how powerful, can fly in the face of public
opinion for any length of time without losing more in one way than they gain
178 “Defeat The Big Cinch” St. Louis Post-‐Dispatch. 11 Mar. 1907: 8. 179 Player, James “Fifty Men Control City, Says Official” St. Louis Post-‐Dispatch. 29 Mar. 1908: 1.
78 [Type text] [Type text]
in another,” the judge writes.180 The editor of the Star-Chronicle181 called the
“Big Cinch” a “very real and very tangible entity.”182
Mayor Rolla Wells and Politician David R. Francis, both accused
“Cinch” members, wrote letters claiming the Post-Dispatch was attempting to
defame the city’s business leaders. Wells refuted his alleged role and decried
the “Big Cinch” as a “bugaboo used by sensational speaker, not to say writers,
to prejudice the ignorant.”183 If a “Big Cinch” of the city’s businessmen did
exist, Wells said, the St. Louis was better off. Francis, the majority
stockholder of the Republic and supposed leader of the “Cinch,” also denied
connections to the conspiracy, asking if the term was “used as a reproach to
men of large business affairs, or is merely the cynical expression of
disgruntled individuals who rail at everything and are satisfied with
nothing.”184
A notable feature of the Pulitzer paper’s attacks on the “Big Cinch”
was its attempt to paint David R. Francis, the principal stakeholder of its
competitor, the Republic, as the “Cinch” leader. While there is some truth to
the allegations, it was also in the Post-Dispatch’s financial interest to make
these charges. The public of St. Louis did not give the Republic much heed,
evidenced by its bankruptcy in 1919.
180 Reynolds, Matt “Public Opinion Can Cure Cinch’s Evils” St. Louis Post-‐Dispatch. 29 Mar. 1908: 1. 181 The papers merged around 1905. 182 Reynolds, Matt “Public Opinion Can Cure Cinch’s Evils” St. Louis Post-‐Dispatch. 29 Mar. 1908: 1. 183 Wells, Rolla “Is Just A Bugaboo, Says Mayor Wells” St. Louis Post-‐Dispatch. 29 Mar. 1908: 1. 184 Francis, David “A Slap At Public Spirited Citizens” St. Louis Post-‐Dispatch. 29 Mar. 1908: 1.
79 [Type text] [Type text]
The term became a national buzzword for special interest groups,
appearing in national periodicals and books well into the 1920s. As the legend
lived on, so did the notion that the “Big Cinch” controlled some of the city’s
newspapers. Reflecting the American newspaper industry’s commercialization
and professionalization in the first decades of the twentieth century,
journalists and the community cast a critical eye at the role the “Big Cinch”
played in the city’s press.
As the paper promoted this myth in the wake of the scandal, the Post-
Dispatch had become city’s most popular newspaper. While Pulitzer mulled
over selling his St. Louis property at times, its success after 1904 convinced
the publisher to retain the paper. During a visit to Pulitzer by Post-Dispatch
editor George S. Johns around 1906, the publisher introduced the editor to
business managers and told the group that he was too focused on New York to
pay attention to the St. Louis paper. “The main thing that interests me about it
is the check I receive in dividends,” Pulitzer said, according to the
reminiscences of Johns’ son. “I assure the newspaper is a mint — it makes
plenty of money.”185 From this, one can see that Pulitzer viewed the Post-
Dispatch first and foremost as a commodity.
185 Johns, 1937, pp. 161-‐162
80 [Type text] [Type text]
CHAPTER III: COMMENTARY ON COMMERCIALIZATION &
COMMODIFICATION
As the Post-Dispatch covered Folk’s investigations and resulting
prosecutions and into the early decades of the twentieth century, journalists
and members of the community commented on the role of news
commercialization and commodification in the scandal and, more broadly, in
the culture and practices of St. Louis’ newspapers.
McConachie and Leonard briefly touch on news commercialization
and commodification in St. Louis newspapers in their research, but, lacking a
focus on journalism history, do not delve deeply. Expanding upon these
historians’ perspectives, this portion of the author’s research focused on
uncovering primary source evidence of commentary by period observers.
SCENE SHAKER
“Behind The Scenes In St. Louis,” published in Texas-based
sensational newspaper The Iconoclast in late 1897 or early 1898, was one of
the first articles comprehensively describing the group later known as the “Big
Cinch.” Its author, using the pseudonym of Iseult Kuyk and a St. Louis
dateline, asserts that the twenty or so members of the corrupt cadre ruled St.
Louis like “nobility,” and they used the press as their “tool” to distort opinion
and create crusades distracting the public from illicit activities.186
McConachie assigns the author’s identity to St. Louis journalist
William Marion Reedy, editor of the internationally popular magazine, The
186 Brann, 1919, p. 206
81 [Type text] [Type text]
Mirror.187 Primm casts doubt on this idea in light that an alleged “Cinch”
member named in the Iconoclast article made a considerable investment by
during the founding of Reedy’s magazine.188 Reedy was later known as a
prominent critic of the “Cinch” and the press for its failure in serving the
public interest. Regardless, the use of a alias and the fact that the article was
published in a widely distributed newspaper (and one based outside of St.
Louis) indicates there was some degree of risk publishing these statements in
the city.
Members of the group were said to hold significant ownership stakes
in most of the city’s newspapers, enabling direct control of content. Even
papers with no financial connections to members of the group fell subject to
its power through advertising boycotts, the article said:
“No paper dare take up these matters and discuss them. If one were to
do so, it would not have five advertisements of the leading retail
dealers in anything in the whole city. Col. Charles H. Jones, when
editor of the Post-Dispatch, once criticized Mr. Sam Kennard for
something, and forthwith Barr, Nugent, Crawford, Scruggs,
Vandervoort and Barney, and the other big dealers withdrew their
patronage in order to prevent his making the sum of money each year
prescribed in his contract with Joseph Pulitzer as the sine qua non to
187 McConachie, 1976, 141 188 Primm, 1981, p. 390
82 [Type text] [Type text]
his retention of his place. They drove him out of journalism finally.
You’ve got to stand in with all this gang, or go to the wall.”189
The image projected is one of a group wielding significant enough
clout to affect a culture of silence among the city’s newspapers. Written just
after Pulitzer regained control of the Post-Dispatch from Jones, the passage
implies the paper, outside of Jones’ editorship, mostly “played ball” with the
group to preserve advertising patronage. Newspapers like the Globe-
Democrat and the Republic reflected St. Louis’ “soporific atmosphere”:
“The crowd just lives as if it were soaked and sodden in the city’s vast
beer output. It is content to let a few men and a few big concerns
monopolize all the business. It scarcely has energy enough to try to
amuse itself. It goes to bed at half past nine, and never thoroughly
wakes up.”190
Newspapers’ ability to rouse public sentiment against abuses of
political and financial power, in the author’s view, was significantly stifled by
the group. Yet no real suggestions for improvement of the press were offered.
The public is cast as sheep and the newspapers as bound to prevailing
conditions and associations. The author does not seem to hold out much home
in Pulitzer’s renewed control of the Post-Dispatch, suggesting the article was
written before the paper’s Central Traction crusade began.
CITY EDITOR, OPPORTUNIST
189 Brann, 1919, p. 207. 190 Brann, 1919, p. 214.
83 [Type text] [Type text]
Born during the Civil War in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, Claude H.
Wetmore attended Western Reserve University and a university in
Switzerland in his formative years before making his way to St. Louis to work
as a newspaperman.191 Wetmore, well educated for a journalist at the time,
served as city editor of the Post-Dispatch following the ousting of part owner
Charles H. Jones in 1897. He resigned in the summer of 1900.
In the years immediately following his departure from the Post-
Dispatch, Wetmore collaborated with Lincoln Steffens on the famous “Tweed
Days In St. Louis” article, bought The Valley Weekly Magazine from William
Marion Reedy and served as president of the Pan-American Publishing
Company.192 He also became involved in various business ventures like
mineral water production and natural gas exploration. Wetmore’s rise in social
stature and wealth is evidenced by press mentions. The New York Times
described Wetmore in early 1908 as “a well known St. Louis broker and
author of marine stories.”193 He was included in a 1910 list of the city’s
“Distinguished Residents” in the Post-Dispatch, appearing among 230 St.
Louisans, including former mayor Rolla Wells.194
Wetmore’s version of the Central Traction exposure history and
narrative of Folk’s prosecutions, “The Battle Against Bribery,” was initially
published in segments in The Valley Magazine during June and July 1904. A
portion in a July issue appeared with a non-bylined article, “Folk For
191 Leonard, 1986, p. 604. 192 “Magazine In New Hands” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 8 Nov. 1903: A7. 193 “Fears Magellan Route” New York Times. 13 Jan. 1908: 2. 194 “’Who’s Who’ In St. Louis? Just 230 Celebrities” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 10 Jul. 1910: A3.
84 [Type text] [Type text]
President; The Reasons Why,” and a story (“Halftome on Strauss”) penned by
Joseph W. Folk himself.195 This lumping of stories could denote the existence
of a close relationship between Wetmore and the circuit attorney.
Wetmore’s publishing company released the series as a book that year.
Near the text’s opening, he relates an anecdote on the financial pressures
facing newspapers in exposing corruption:
“Wonder has been expressed that the newspapers did not expose the
true situation. They could have done so years ago, for facts sufficient
to damn every office holder guilty of bribery were brought by
reporters to the desks of managing editors. Then why was the silence
kept? A reply is the answer given one day by a man high in authority
to an enthusiast who desired to expose the crime. ‘It would not do,’
said he. ‘To start this ball rolling would result in its ultimately falling
on us and we would be crushed. Some of our heaviest advertisers have
been giving bribes. They had to do it or go out of business. If this thing
were once started, men would be dragged out of churches and out of
clubs and led to jail. No, no, we’ll let it alone.’“196
While it is unlikely that this was an actual conversation, Wetmore’s
work as a city editor for various local papers certainly gives his depiction of
the conditions credibility. The journalist in the anecdote clearly wants to
reveal obvious wrongdoing and his editor is sympathetic, but practical. This
195 “Display Ad – No Title” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 5 Jul. 1904: 17. 196 Wetmore, 1904, p. 9.
85 [Type text] [Type text]
prevailing culture of the local newspapers, he implies, prevented honest
journalists from doing their job.
The tipping point occurred as the Post-Dispatch “rebelled at the
existing order of things” by charging officials with bribery in the passage of
the Central Traction bill in 1898, he writes, because an “unusually large and
unusually palpable steal was effected.”197 Based on Wetmore’s casting of the
Post-Dispatch as the lone “rebel” paper chasing boodlers and his phrasing of
its reason for pursing the crusade, it seems that he felt the paper acted against
the corrupt officials out of genuine concern for the public’s interest. Of
course, given his role as city editor at the beginning of the exposures, this
could have been, in some way, a bit of self-promotion.
Although Folk was lionized amply, the role of newspapers and
exploits of journalists are not overlooked. More than any other writer who
attempted to record the events at the time, Wetmore acknowledges the role of
journalists — not those of the Post-Dispatch — in furthering investigations,
beating prosecutors to the facts, and acting in the public’s interest. Preparing
the work, Wetmore interviewed the major Post-Dispatch journalists involved
in the crusade from 1898 to 1904.
“However much it may be necessary to censure the business offices in
the large dailies of St. Louis,” he writes, “one cannot sing too loudly in praise
of the working reporters, who, though paid small weekly wages, have ever
been in the front, assisting the circuit attorney in his fight against
197 Wetmore, 1904, p. 10.
86 [Type text] [Type text]
corruption.”198 The success of the exposures and prosecutions seems to be
attributed to a growing sense of professionalism and public duty among
reporters, regardless of newspaper affiliation.
Wetmore implies that some of the city’s newspapers began covering
the truth of the city’s problems out of need to compete with the Post-Dispatch.
In an anecdote, Wetmore casts the Chronicle as so desperate for an exclusive
story from Folk that a reporter was tricked into reporting blatantly false
information that ultimately served the circuit attorney’s propaganda purposes
of frightening potential witnesses. A Chronicle editor called Folk complaining
about the fake lead and the circuit attorney consoled him saying the paper
“rendered the state valuable service.” The editor shot back: “Damn the state, I
am working for a newspaper.”199
If this is true, the Chronicle editor’s retort to the double-crossing
circuit attorney contains signs of consciousness that journalism was an
occupation whose duties were to serve the public’s interest and compete with
rival newsgathering organizations. The editor did not care whether the circuit
attorney prevailed or not, his paper needed an exclusive story to maintain a
competitive edge.
The former city editor was an idealist, and, like Steffens, tainted reality
in his writing to further his point. But one cannot discount Wetmore’s
sentiments, undoubtedly stemming from real experiences as an editor around
the city’s newsrooms. In his view, journalists were pitted against an
198 Wetmore, 1904, p. 145. 199 Wetmore, 1904, p. 92.
87 [Type text] [Type text]
overwhelming precedent of ignoring municipal ills because of financial
concerns, advertising in the newspaper and ultimately their own jobs. The
“rebel” Post-Dispatch offered honest journalists a chance to publish the truth,
and, in fact, committed tremendous resources to do so. The text does not
mention gains or losses of advertising or circulation stemming from the
coverage. In presenting allusions to a shift in how local journalists viewed
their role and ability to tell the truth, Wetmore’s perspective is evidence of the
positive effects of commodification.
THE REFORMING REVEREND
Pastor of the Mount Cabanne Christian Church and other parishes, and
editor of a periodical, The Optimist, Rev. Frank G. Tyrrell was one of several
prominent local clergy members known at the turn of the century for
outspoken criticism the city’s culture of corruption. The Post-Dispatch
referred to Tyrrell as a “reformer” by the mid-1890’s as the reverend rallied
against saloons, gambling halls and other local social vices. As 1900
approached, Tyrrell became a prominent member of the Civic Federation, a
progressive organization, along with Rev. W.W. Boyd and other prominent
citizens intent on reform.200
In a 1904 book titled “Political Thuggery, or Missouri’s Battle With
The Boodlers,” Tyrrell offered his take on the story of Joseph W. Folk’s
prosecutions and delivers a sermon against both the boodlers and Lincoln
Steffens’ “unjust” depiction of the city in “Shamelessness.” Written when
200 Nord, 1979, p. 94.
88 [Type text] [Type text]
Folk was running for governor and the city was hosting thousands of visitors
for the World’s Fair, the book was attempting to set the record straight
according to the reverend’s vision of events. Conditions were far from perfect
but Folk and Mayor Rolla Wells had mostly eradicated corruption in local
government in Tyrrell’s view.
Throughout his narrative the reverend lauds the city’s press as “the
great agent of publicity,” viewing newspapers primarily as a platform to
reflect the messages and ideology of his concept of reform. He records that the
press “gave the first clue” and calls the dailies a “potent factor” in the
resulting legal actions, but gives no specific details on newspapers’ role in
furthering investigations201. For example, the Post-Dispatch’s role in the
return of Murrell and Kratz is neglected.
Tyrrell depicts the prevailing financial conditions in St. Louis’
newspaper industry as more of a hindrance to papers’ ability to jump on the
bandwagon of reform, rather than performing the duty of impartially
informing the public. The grand jury prosecutions allowed the other papers to
support reforms, he asserts:
“Sometimes, in a pessimistic mood, we are inclined to criticize the
daily papers because they do not lead in the exposures of infamous
wrong and the moulding [sic] of public opinion. We forget that a
modern newspaper is an immense commercial enterprise, and that its
201 See Tyrrell, 1904, p. 18 and chapter IX.
89 [Type text] [Type text]
prosperity, not to say it’s survival depends on the ruling conditions in
the commercial world.”202
Aside from falsely claiming that the city’s press did not take a leading
role in the incident, Tyrrell’s statement above presupposes that the public
expected newspapers to play a principal role in the unearthing of corruption.
His tone appears as an attempt to apologize to the public for newspapers’
conduct, casting the press as a force for good tethered by capitalism. Yet there
is one interesting revelation gleaned from the passage: Given these
newspapers were part of a “immense commercial enterprise,” their shift to
coverage and editorial support of the reform movement could not conflict with
their basic survival. Thus, covering this big story was an economic necessity.
Tyrrell’s comments could be interpreted, in a wider context, as
criticism of the shift from the moral/political editorial policies of pre-
commercialized newspapers, when influencing the opinions readers was a
primary objective, to the profit-oriented press, where paramount interest was
in drawing mass readership by maintaining a placid political stance. He
continues in this vein:
Suppose the papers had been first and foremost, as they easily might
have been, in the work which was taken up by Mr. Joseph W. Folk
before the Grand Jury, immediately they would have brought upon
their devoted heads the wrath and vengeance of vested business
interests. Their advertising patronage would have been jeopardized
202 Tyrrell, 1904, p. 44.
90 [Type text] [Type text]
and doubtless much of it lost; for advertising is the quartz mine of the
modern newspaper. No matter what might be the private opinions and
purposes of the editors, the wishes of stockholders and directors must
be consulted; and whether we like it or not, a newspaper must, to some
extent, if not absolutely, be controlled from the counting room.”203
Editorial non-activism and censorship according to the interests of
advertisers and newspaper stakeholders represented, in Tyrrell’s view, a
financial necessity. Tyrrell’s tenor of resignation (ex. “Whether we like it or
not”) suggests that the clergyman did not expect things to change any time
soon. He expresses a desire for a time when “our civilization has arisen
several grades higher, when a great newspaper may be a great leader and
moulder [sic] of public opinion.”204 The press, Tyrrell perceived, could only
reflect public sentiment as long as it the commercialized system endured.
However much he may have condemned the commercial nature of
newspapers, Tyrrell was not short on praise for the city’s press as a whole for
its support of Folk and reforms after 1902. As long as it editorially backed
Folk and the reform movement the press was functioning properly, he felt. But
Tyrrell notes that people seemed to gravitate toward newspapers that aimed to
accurately report news and genuinely serve the public’s interest. In a section
examining the power of the pulpit and press to drive public opinion to reform,
Tyrrell details on this:
203 Tyrrell, 1904, pp. 44-‐45. 204 Ibid. p. 45.
91 [Type text] [Type text]
“The press is vastly influential because of its circulation, but the
modern daily paper is a commercial institution pure and simple, and it
carries with it no more weight than would belong to the pulpit should
it be commercialized. There may be exceptions to this rule, but
exceptions only prove the rule. The press is the great agent of
publicity, but it has suffered in public esteem because of ‘fake’ news;
because of the suspicion of self interest which must always attach to
that which is purely or chiefly commercial.”205
Observant readers could easily detect the fake news forced into print
by the “Big Cinch,” Tyrrell writes, and the papers of St. Louis started
diligently reporting the truth in response to public demands.206 The reverend
ultimately viewed the press as devoid of morality, a platform forced by the
public to tell the truth that could be utilized for reformer’s propaganda
purposes.
THE KERRY PATCH KID
Growing up in Kerry Patch, a working class Irish neighborhood near
the Mississippi river, William Marion Reedy worked his way up the echelons
of St. Louis society through years working as a reporter and editor on the
city’s newspapers and eventually founding a literary magazine, The Mirror,
that received international commendation. He was a friend of many notable
business and political power players, but did not hesitate to call out elite
figures for corruption or point out hypocrisy as he saw it.
205 Tyrrell, 1904, p. 221. 206 Ibid.
92 [Type text] [Type text]
Some consider Reedy the author of “Behind The Scenes In St. Louis,”
the Iconoclast article. At any rate, the journalist made his dissatisfaction with
municipal affairs known in an 1899 article, “What’s The Matter With St.
Louis?” published in The Mirror. According to the journalist, newspapers not
only ignored outrages, but overlooked or “slurred over” St. Louis news in
general. Like the Iconoclast article, the blame is placed on the “Big Cinch”:
“The papers here are gagged by the identification of their owners with
the sodden, selfish interests which fear a ‘renaissance’ as something
which may bring new men to the front and burst the cinch which those
interests have had for years upon everything of material value in the
community. There is no outlet for public opinion which might work a
revolution in St. Louis affairs.”207
Reedy’s tenor of dismay is understandable given that the article was
written shortly after the Post-Dispatch factually exposed corruption by public
figures in the Central Traction case, backed by testimonies in court, yet the
grand jury did not make indictments. Like Tyrrell, the journalist clearly sees
the press’ potential to influence and reflect public opinion, but his view of
their usefulness is not limited simply to furthering the cause of the reform
movement. Reedy’s cry for “revolution” was also a plea for honest, public
serving newspapers.
In a March 1908 Post-Dispatch opinion article, Reedy asserts that
certain local newspapers were “of the Big Cinch.” The owners of the
207 Sandweiss, 2000, p. 407.
93 [Type text] [Type text]
unidentified dailies, he writes, were “in business schemes with the men who
control franchises, who preside of the destinies of banks.”208 These conditions,
according to Reedy, rendered journalists powerless to challenge “Big Cinch”
interests. Their self-censoring editorial stance was “natural,” he muses, owing
to owners’ personal financial connections to the group. Economic pressures
were not limited to owners’ financial bonds to the “Big Cinch,” Reedy points
out: “Furthermore, the heads of the big stores that advertise have investments
often, in franchise properties. They don’t want their investments depreciated.
They have only to speak to newspaper owners, referring incidentally to the
business they give their papers and their suggestions are heeded.”209
The journalist did not merely print his views. Two months later at a
meeting of the Missouri Press Association, Reedy read a paper titled “The
Myth Of A Free Press,” to the assembled editors from across the state
presenting “a protest against the tide of commercialization of journalism” and
“a plea for a return to idealism.”210 Reedy describes the idea of a free,
independent press serving the public’s welfare as a “superstition,” because the
foundation and operation of daily newspapers usually requires the backing of
capitalists, who in turn “insist on the conduct of the newspaper in a way to
insure the protection of their own interests.”211
Speaking on the St. Louis boodle exposures, the journalist lamented
the fact that most the city’s newspapers abandoned support for Folk’s
208 Reedy, William Marion. “Big Cincher, Reedy Says, Is One Who Gets Arbitrary Charges Rebated.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 29 Mar. 1908: 1 209 ibid. 210 Reedy, 1908, p. 436. 211 Ibid, p. 436.
94 [Type text] [Type text]
prosecutions when the circuit attorney moved from charging the saloon
owning, working class members of the Municipal Assembly to leading figures
of the city.
“The men who had made their wealth and were drawing dividends out
of the corporations based upon these franchises did not relish the
prospect of exposure, so being advertisers or the business or social
associates of the men who control the greater morning dailies, they
very soon ‘got in their work,’ in a way to produce the editorial
campaign of ‘crawfishing’.”212
Corrupt officials, businesses, and other figures cast negatively in the
press’ light used “crawfishing,” Reedy said, forcing newspapers to publish
disinformation through financial coercion, to direct the public’s attention
toward other supposed causes of civic ills and discredit reformers.
It is noteworthy that he specifically identifies the city’s morning
papers — the Globe-Democrat and Republic. Though Reedy points out that
Pulitzer sometimes reined in his free and independent editorial policy due to
financial connections, the omission of the “independent” afternoon papers, the
Post-Dispatch and Chronicle, and the Star, an Republican evening paper,
implies that the morning papers were overtly partisan and working to preserve
the status quo, while the afternoon and evening papers were not subject to
these financial pressures, theoretically enabling them to lead in investigations
and support of reform and circuit attorney Folk.
212 ibid, p. 442.
95 [Type text] [Type text]
The views broadcast to the editors, likely including representatives of
the papers he criticized, are somewhat ironic given Reedy’s history: The
Mirror, his popular literary magazine, is thought to have been partially
bankrolled by blackmailing St. Louis’ leading figures to withhold publication
of their dirty laundry.213. The journalist was also intimately connected with
many of the men wrapped up in the “boodle” investigations. Working as a
journalist for several St. Louis daily newspapers, as well as running and
editing his own publication in the city, Reedy was intimately aware of the
problems facing local newspapers.
THE MELODRAMATIC MERCHANT
Local merchant Leo A. Landau, secretary and general manager of his
family’s department store, Globe Shoe and Clothing Company and member of
several prominent business-related organizations, became a conspicuous voice
against “Big Cinch” interests near the end of the twentieth century’s first
decade.
Among letters from prominent citizens voicing opinions on the
existence of the “Big Cinch,” published on a Post-Dispatch front page in
March 1908, Landau defines the group as “a combination of about twenty-five
St. Louisans” who led the city’s industrial and financial concerns with the
assistance of about 150 “lieutenants.”214 The group, Landau writes, was in
control of “two or three of our daily newspapers,” using the paper to “favor
any measure that cinches things for their interests” and cast opposition in a
213 Putzel, 1963, pp. 49-‐50. 214 Landau, Leo. “Who Are In ‘Cinch’ Shown By $5 Dinner” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 29 Mar. 1908: 1.
96 [Type text] [Type text]
negative light.215 Next to Landau’s letter, circuit court judge George S. Shields
acknowledged the presence of the group, telling the Post-Dispatch, “Publicity
is the cure for such things, wherever they exist. The press is most potent to
check such abuses.”216
The Landaus’ department store, known simply as “The Globe,” was a
prominent and consistent advertiser in the Post-Dispatch during the height of
the paper’s exposures.217 The merchant was also involved in the Advertising
Men’s League of St. Louis, serving as the organization’s treasurer in 1909.218
Because of these connections Landau was presumably well versed in the
relationship of the city’s advertisers with local newspapers. Beyond his
affiliations to advertising and the press, Landau was an involved member of
business related organizations, like the Progressive Downtown Improvement
Association. Formed by some of St. Louis’ largest retailers and manufacturers
to redevelop of areas of the city’s center into a new, updated municipal
market, the association’s members included former Lieutenant Governor
Charles P. Johnson and David May, owner of the Famous Shoe and Clothing
Company (later Famous-Barr department stores). Landau was, in essence, part
of St. Louis’ business elite.
In early 1910, Landau turned the story city’s struggle for reform into a
fictional novel, “The Big Cinch,” casting the “independent” press, in a
215 Ibid. 216 Ibid. 217 Based on this author’s examination of Post-‐Dispatch issues from 1898, 1900, 1902; Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday editions; Jan. 1 through Feb. 31, Jun. 1 through Jul. 31, Nov. 1 through Dec. 31. 218 See “Associated Advertising Clubs Issue A Magazine” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 7 Dec. 1909: 11
97 [Type text] [Type text]
somewhat over-romanticized style, as front-runners in the exposures. It is
telling that the book’s main protagonist is a truth-telling reporter, Jack
McNair, and its dedication is to the “Most Powerful Agency In the World for
Justice and Truth[,] The Independent, Fearless Newspaper[,] Of which there
are very, very, very few.”219 Although names and some details were changed,
the melodramatic story was essentially based on fact.220
Apparently the book irked some St. Louisans. The city’s public library
banned “The Big Cinch” shortly after it was released. The head librarian, A.
E. Bostwick, told the Post-Dispatch he forbad the book because its “general
tone” was “too sensational.”221 Defending his book, Landau said the fictional
narrative portrayed “things as they are.”222
Set in the city of “Louisberg,” Landau casts the owners of St. Louis’
morning newspapers as bedfellows with the “Big Cinch,” a small group of
wealthy businessmen and financiers dictating affairs of the city. These
“special interest” newspapers “The Journal” and “The Leader,” (alluding to
the Globe-Democrat and the Republic) suppressed news conflicting with
“Cinch” interests because of their owners’ business connections and financial
concerns.
Early in the story, a “Big Cinch” member, financier and politician
Edward Wenzel, calls the editor of the Leader asking for the omission of an
219 Landau, 1910, dedication 220 “Leo Landau Writes A Chronicle Of St. Louis Graft As Fiction Work With Reporter As The Hero” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 27 Feb. 1910: 1B 221 “Leo Landau’s Lurid Book Is Barred From Library” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 8 Mar. 1910:1. 222 Ibid.
98 [Type text] [Type text]
article concerning a lucrative railroad grade crossing bill in the state
legislature. Initially the editor would not bow to pressure, telling Wenzel the
article is “of the greatest importance to the readers of our paper” as it appeared
to be passed by “high-handed” methods.223 Wenzel then pressures the owner
of the Leader, who borrowed large sums from a bank largely controlled by
Wenzel, to talk to the editor. The paper’s owner bribes the editor to withhold
the article. The principal stockholder of the Journal, the other morning daily,
described by Landau as a millionaire and director of a bank with Wenzel,
agreed to censor the story if its morning competitor followed suit.
But the “News-Herald,” an obvious pseudonym for the Post-Dispatch,
was “fearless and independent, politically and every other way. Always
militant,” in unveilings of the “Big Cinch” crimes to protect and promote the
interests of the masses.224 In the text, Landau speculates that the newspaper’s
crusades were enabled by its financial and management structure:
“Perhaps this independent method was due to the fact that the owners
and principal stockholders of the paper were not residents of
Louisberg. All the other Louisberg papers were owned by residents of
Louisberg and naturally these gentlemen associated with men who had
special interests to serve. These friendships, coupled with the fact that
223 Landau, 1910, p. 26.
224 Landau, 1910, p. 36. Landau describes the “Press-‐Herald” as an independent afternoon daily. The Post-‐Dispatch was the largest “independent” afternoon daily [double check this, writing this with the assumption that the Chronicle was an afternoon paper…might not have been…in which case it was the ONLY “independent” afternoon daily]; the only “independent” newspaper in St. Louis with a hyphenated name; and its owners, by and large, did not reside in St. Louis.
99 [Type text] [Type text]
many of the newspaper owners were themselves interested in the large
public service corporations, railroads, etc., of course had its influence
on the policy of the papers that the gentlemen owned.”225
The paper’s editorial policy of telling the truth and appealing the
interests of the “masses,” increased the News-Herald’s readership, making it
the city’s most profitable newspaper, Landau writes, as well as a influential
platform for molding public opinion in the city and state. After the News-
Herald’s crusades began, many of those identified by articles sued the paper
for libel, but were unsuccessful because they could not deny the truth of the
allegations.
Later in the story, state Governor “Bolt” (Folk) calls Henry Jennings,
major stockholder of the morning daily Journal, to his office in an attempt to
persuade him to adopt an “independent” editorial line. “Show me the
independent, truthful, fearless paper, the friend of the masses, in any city and
I’ll show you the paper with the largest circulation and the heaviest
advertising,” the Governor tells Jennings, declaring that his competitor, the
News-Herald was more profitable and influential because it told the truth.226
While the governor extolls the values of truth telling, the line of argument is
largely based on the prospect of increased profits. Jennings agrees, switching
the Journal to an “independent” editorial line.
225 Landau, 1910, p. 36. 226 Ibid. p. 102.
100 [Type text] [Type text]
In Landau’s view, the ideal newspaper eschewed censorship stemming
from special interests and financial obligations. “If it were not for the big
independent newspapers, politicians would have a picnic and the people
would always be ‘left at the post’ by both parties in political races,” he writes
near the end of the book, indicating Landau considered “independent”
newspapers as beneficial to the American people and cause of democracy, as
well the economic interests of newspaper owners.227 This idealism was similar
to Wetmore’s in its idolization of journalists as the protectors of public
welfare. As theatrical as the novel is, thoughtful observers should note that
Landau’s real world experiences as a business owner, advertising patron, and
leading member of an organization representing the city’s advertisers must
have come into play in crafting the text.
A DEAR JOHN TO THE REPUBLIC
The Republic was seen by many as the organ of the “Big Cinch” in St.
Louis. As the paper faced bankruptcy in 1919, the paper’s editor, Post-
Dispatch transplant Sam Hellman, wrote a pointed letter to owner David R.
Francis, then U.S. ambassador to Russia. Describing the introduction of the
paper’s “New Era” editorial policy, Hellman tells Francis the Republic’s
connections to special interests caused the its downfall. The editor posits that
the daily could be financially successful if its editorial policy would “hew the
line of real democracy.”228
227 Ibid, p. 231.
228 Letter from Sam Hellman to David R. Francis, May 27, 1919. David Rowland Francis Papers, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis.
101 [Type text] [Type text]
“We defended big business at every turn, fought labor unions, derided
social reformers and otherwise distinguished ourself [sic] as a class
organ – a paper of the property interests of St. Louis as opposed to the
human interests of the city. And what has The Republic gained by its
championship of the vested interests? Nothing. The rich advertiser
whom we defended at every turn gave his advertising to the Post-
Dispatch – a newspaper that has always fought for the masses or
pretended to. The wealthy class have praised us for our editorial
attitude, cussed out the P-D and then given all their business to the P-
D. The reason is simple. The Post reached the masses and the
advertiser wanted to reach the masses. He did not let his personal
likes or dislikes interfere with his business.”229
The greatest challenge to overcoming the Republic’s years of decline,
Hellman tells Francis, was convincing the public that its shift in editorial
policy was genuine. McConachie, in attempting to refute the “Big Cinch”
legend’s premise that the group controlled the city’s newspapers, uses the
Republic’s bankruptcy as an example of its falsehood.
Citing the Hellman letter, McConachie takes this as an admission that
the group’s financial influence in the city’s press failed. The historian was not
viewing the incident in the context of journalism history and therefore
overlooks the realities of the situation. Ownership of newspapers by “Cinch”
members may have ultimately proven unsuccessful, but advertisers were still
229 Ibid.
102 [Type text] [Type text]
able wield pressure against papers. The letter is also a remarkable example of
an editor appealing to the owner of newspaper to transform from catering to
the needs of special interests and partisanship to an honest, modern
newsgathering organization.
103 [Type text] [Type text]
CHAPTER IV: CONCLUSIONS
This thesis aimed to craft the narrative of the Post-Dispatch’s crusade
and promotion of the “Big Cinch” image within the background of business
concerns and conditions facing local newspapers of the period. The evidence
and perspectives of period observers suggest that local newspaper
commercialization and commodification of news served positive and negative
roles in enabling St. Louis’ press to cover corruption and embrace reform.
Analyzing the crusade and its context within St. Louis’ newspaper
history, it is apparent that competitive business concerns were at play in the
Post-Dispatch’s coverage of the scandal and editorial line of promoting
reform and condemning the “Big Cinch.” Financial interests were not the only
factor behind its actions. Some reporters and editors from St. Louis dailies,
regardless of their employers’ affiliations, sought to expose the truth.
Corruption was omnipresent and obvious.
As the scandal and the “Big Cinch” made headlines, St. Louis’ newspapers
were transitioning from partisan press era business and editorial practices to
modern, “independent” (less partisan) models. The case presents a unique
opportunity to examine the theoretical versus real world impacts of
commercialization on news.
Scholars are also offered an opportunity to examine a tangible example
of the effects of news commodification. Post-Dispatch news and editorials
covering the scandal and reform efforts, and promotion of the “Big Cinch”
legend, were crafted to sell papers and influence public opinion. These images
104 [Type text] [Type text]
and ideas were converted into products, sold to and embraced by local mass
audiences. Rival dailies mimicked some of these messages in an attempt to
keep up with the Pulitzer paper’s growing circulation.
THEORY OF COMMERCIALIZATION
St. Louis’ dailies were in the midst of commercialization, or the
process of converting the focus of newsgathering organizations to profit
accumulation, as the scandal unfolded at the turn of the century. As the local
press altered content and production to meet the demands of capitalistic
market forces, they not only had to conform to standards of the newspaper
market of the United States but also that of St. Louis, possessing its own
principles and culture.
The Republic and the Star, whose major stockholders were prominent
political figures, were essentially partisan organs. The Post-Dispatch, then
known as an “independent democrat” newspaper, was still shaking off its
association with the politically-charged editorial policies of Charles H. Jones
and struggling to regain circulation. Perhaps the most commercialized
newspapers in St. Louis at the turn of the century were the Globe-Democrat
and the Chronicle.
Enjoying regional influence230 and national respect, the Globe-
Democrat was the city’s most prosperous newspaper throughout most of the
late 1800s. Its focus was not on local news, but on catering to the interests of
conservative Republican upper and middle class readers throughout the range
230 Circulation extended into states surrounding Missouri and other western states.
105 [Type text] [Type text]
of states the paper circulated in. Articulate criticism of state and national
Democratic Party members was abundant; exposures of wrongdoing in St.
Louis were not. This proved profitable for the paper for some time.
The Scripps-McRae newspaper chain sensed a market opportunity for
a daily serving St. Louis’ working class readers in the 1880s, establishing the
Chronicle, the city’s first penny paper. With an independent editorial policy
and focus on drawing city circulation, the paper aimed to provide an optimal
advertising platform for local businesses. Despite applying newspaper
business concepts that were advanced for the time, the Chronicle’s circulation
remained small in comparison to copies sold by the Republic, the Pulitzer
paper, and the Globe-Democrat.
The five dailies varied in partisanship and the geographic focus of
their circulation (local or regional), but it appears the city’s newspapers were
financially dependent on advertising and circulation revenue.231 Advertising
industry figures referenced above, like Charles Austin Bates, did not convey
much confidence in the Post-Dispatch as a display advertising medium,
compared to the Republic and Globe-Democrat, but marveled at its shrewd
tactics in gaining higher and higher circulation. This is probably because the
Pulitzer paper was applying new journalistic and news business techniques
that were at that date unproven in providing positive profit returns.
231 Based on these newspapers inclusion in prominent newspaper directories and the fact that most of these newspapers placed advertisements in these books to attract advertising patronage. These papers are also mentioned in advertising trade publications at the time in articles relating to advertising in St. Louis.
106 [Type text] [Type text]
Other press critics, like Delos F. Wilcox, critiqued the Post-Dispatch’s
supposed “yellow” characteristics of sensationalism, penchant for illustrations
and bold headlines, and its high number of patent medicine and classified ads.
But “yellow” techniques sold newspapers. These attributes were in many
ways the foundation of what newspapers’ business and content model in the
twentieth century. A byproduct of commercialization, contemporary scholar
Denis McQuail writes, is that news organizations eventually push readers to
assimilate in the greater culture of consumerism.232
While not measured or documented in any sort of scientific way, the
author of this thesis examined a sample of complete Post-Dispatch issues
from 1898, 1900 and 1902233 with the specific purpose of gaining a sense of
who advertised and what was promoted. Based on this, this thesis’ author
noted that local department store ads were consistently the largest, most
prevalent display advertisements throughout the sample. Most of the city’s
large department stores advertised in the Post-Dispatch in each issue
examined save for Crawford’s, whose ads appeared frequently but with some
interruptions toward the end of the sample. The other large display ads
appearing regularly throughout the issues were for nationally distributed
patent medicines followed by emerging national brands like the National
Biscuit Company (Nabisco) of Chicago.
232 McQuail, 2005, p. 550. 233 This thesis’ author looked at issues from 1898, 1900, and 1902. Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday issues. Jan. 1-‐Feb. 31; Jun. 1-‐Jul. 31; Nov. 1-‐Dec. 31.This sample period was selected because it represented key points in the paper’s crusade: 1898 when it began, 1900 as a middle point, and 1902 when prosecutions and convictions occurred. This was not conducted with any scientific precision, and was mostly for this thesis author’s background knowledge.
107 [Type text] [Type text]
Although the sample was not scientifically precise, the author of this
thesis can definitively state that display advertisements during this period
were chiefly for consumer goods including clothing and shoes, medicine,
alcoholic beverages, and food products. St. Louis was a manufacturing and
retail center. Local newspapers catered to these businesses and offered their
pages as a way to reach the city’s teeming thousands. The dailies and local
businesses advertising in their columns had a vested interest in promoting
consumerism for survival. As the Post-Dispatch exposed wrongdoing and
covered prosecutions the amount of display ads in each issue examined did
not appear to decline and the clients, a mixture of local and national patrons,
seemed to remain consistent. Coverage of the scandal may have driven some
readers away, but circulation could have been strengthened by public interest
in news of the Spanish-American War in 1898 and local, state, and national
elections.
Many of the period observers cited in this thesis thought that the
economic power of the “Big Cinch” represented a threat to the integrity of the
local press. Charles H. Jones’ irksome editorial policies supposedly led to an
advertising boycott of the Post-Dispatch. Former city editor Claude Wetmore
related an anecdote about an editor denying a reporter’s request to investigate
graft because the paper’s advertising might be threatened. In merchant-turned-
novelist Leo Landau’s overdramatic fictional narrative of the scandal, the
movement of reform in the state is portrayed as the result of “independent”
newspapers’ efforts working in tandem with honest officials. In Landau’s
108 [Type text] [Type text]
understanding, honesty and public service made “independent” Post-Dispatch
the most profitable newspaper in the city.
Connections between the “Big Cinch” and the city’s advertisers were
very real. Numerous mentions by journalists and other observers of the
group’s willingness to express its displeasure with newspapers’ editorial
policies through advertising boycotts indicate to the author of this thesis that
this was a genuine pressure that local newspapers, including the Post-
Dispatch faced. Owners of some papers were well-known politicians or
supposedly connected to the “Big Cinch,” presenting conflicts of interest in
covering many scandals. This presents a real world example of the theoretical
negative impacts of commercialization.
However, the Post-Dispatch was able to move forward with its
crusade despite these conditions. In all probability, its popularity
(demonstrated through its continuously growing circulation) and mixed
display advertising patronage of local department stores, who depended on
local newspapers regardless of their editorial slant, and nationally distributed
consumer products prevented its financial downfall, if the level of the “Big
Cinch’s” influence is to be believed. In this light, the Pulitzer paper’s cunning
business and editorial tactics prove to be a positive example of
commercialization.
Therein lies the paradox: Capitalistic orientation in the St. Louis
newspaper market had both positive and negative effects on the dailies’ ability
to expose local corruption. If the Post-Dispatch’s news and editorials struck
109 [Type text] [Type text]
readers the wrong way, circulation would have dropped and the other local
newspapers would have not followed suit in promoting the same messages.
THEORY OF COMMODIFICATION
The effects of commodification on the news, when a message in the
news develops material value, are generally viewed as negative.234 The
purchaser of the message shares it with others in their community,
perpetuating a constructed sense of reality. The message’s spread, in theory,
limits the public’s ability to question and challenge the societal status quo it
reflects.
In this thesis’ view the Post-Dispatch commodified the idea of local
reform, the legend of the “Big Cinch,” and support of the actions and political
career of Joseph W. Folk. Articles on these topics increased circulation,
allowing the Pulitzer paper to beat its rivals in readership and influence.
Advertising revenue likely increased. Around 1902, local newspapers
transformed their editorial treatment of these topics, save for Folk’s political
career, to mirror the Post-Dispatch in an apparent attempt to retain a
competitive edge.235 By this time, the Pulitzer paper was the city’s most
popular. In embracing some of the Post-Dispatch’s commodified views, the
newspapers of St. Louis helped to disseminate the paper’s messages.
In promoting the general cause of local reform and support of some of
Folk’s prosecutions, commodification had positive benefits, as public opinion
234 McQuail, 2005, p. 550 235 The depth and nature of support, however, varied from newspaper to newspaper. For example, Republican newspapers would not back Folk’s political career, but they would support some of his efforts to reform local politics.
110 [Type text] [Type text]
was codified against the long-standing conditions. The propagation of the
“Big Cinch” legend represents a negative effect of commodification. Though
there is substantial truth in the mythology of local oligarchical control, the
Post-Dispatch, and other observers who followed its rendering, cast the
conditions of local affairs simplistically as a David (Folk, newspapers, the
people) versus Goliath (all-powerful oligarchs) battle. The image did not take
into account the economic and political realities of the time, scholars like
McConachie and Rafferty point out.
Channeling decades old class and cultural animosities and brewing
suspicions of monopolistic commercial power, the “Big Cinch” was merely a
convenient, simple device to explain to the masses the connection of the city’s
leading figures with corrupt legislation. But many supposed “Cinch” members
continued to drive the commercial and political affairs of the city well into the
twentieth century, leading thoughtful observers to wonder how fair and
accurate the editorial treatment of this group was. It is possible that some St.
Louisans were one-sidedly condemned — like Mayor Rolla Wells and
politician David R. Francis asserted —as members of the “Big Cinch” because
of financial connections to figures accused of crimes, or they were forced to
engage in corrupt activity as part of standard local business and political
practices of the time.
In the commentary of journalist William Marion Reedy and reformer
Rev. Frank G. Tyrrell a sense is given that journalists and the news industry as
a whole had abandoned their role as moral guides of public opinion. Tyrrell
111 [Type text] [Type text]
saw the press as a ethically bankrupt institution, yet one that could be utilized
for publicity of “good” causes. Far more pessimistic, Reedy saw the notion of
a free press as a falsehood in light of the economic realities of establishing and
running a newspaper.
Both the reverend and the journalist saw local newspapers’ support of
reform as a product of profit motives. Their perspectives essentially ask
“What Price Glory?” Could newspapers not only inform, but inspire the
masses? Most of the observers were united in the notion that newspapers can
affect social change unless affected by negative economic pressures.
CLOSING NOTES
The story of the Post-Dispatch’s scandal coverage and role in
perpetuating the “Big Cinch” image represents a transitional moment at the
crossroads of partisan and commercialized journalism. It is an example of
journalists performing a role that the American public in the twenty first
century innately expects the media to perform: a watchdog over those holding
power for the benefit of the community.
To do this, the Post-Dispatch and other local newspapers had to
overcome a prevailing culture of editorial silence enforced by newspaper
owners and investors or the threat of advertising boycotts. Based on available
evidence and the perspectives of period observers, the Post-Dispatch was
financially successful and influential because of its crusades. The newspapers
that endured the first few decades of the twentieth century changed their
112 [Type text] [Type text]
editorial lines to reflect the Post-Dispatch’s time-honored method of
“independence.”
As the media audiences become increasingly fragmented in the early
twenty first century and lines of who a “journalist” is and what a “publication”
is are distorted, news professionals may find some comfort in the fact that
nineteenth and early twentieth century American newspapers also struggled to
balance commercial interests and their service to democracy as providers of
accurate, impartial information.
Today, journalists are looking for new benefactors to pay its bills. It
could be said that the press of the early twenty first century in the United
States is in the midst of an attempt to start a period of “re-commercialization.”
The mainstream media, and even startups, retain hope that the capitalistic
market will provide journalism’s daily bread. St. Louis’ newspapers were
dealing with special interests and pressures from advertisers at the dawn of the
twentieth century. Over one hundred years later bloggers and tweeters are
monitored by corporations and are subject to a number of pressures or
incentives to portray products in a positive light.
Each shift in journalism’s source of patronage brings about changes in
the press’ business model and journalists’ self-concept. Current developments
are no exception to this trend. The case outlined in this paper represents
journalists’ attempt to “roll with” the changes that commodification presented.
So perhaps there are some grounds for optimism, amid newsroom buyouts, the
erection of pay walls, and the formation of “hyperlocal” conglomerates, that
113 [Type text] [Type text]
journalism will endure through the adaptation to the century’s economic
conditions.
114 [Type text] [Type text]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
PRIMARY SOURCES NEWSPAPERS: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1897-1904. ProQuest Historical Newspapers. The St. Louis Republic, 1897-1904. GeneologyBank.com (Newsbank Inc.); Library of Congress Chronicling America Project – Historical Newspapers The New York Times, 1897-1904, ProQuest Historical Newspapers AUTOBIOGRAPHIES: Chapin, Charles E. Charles Chapin’s Story: Written in Sing Sing Prison. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1920. Google Books. Web. 14 Mar 2011. Dreiser, Theodore. Newspaper Days. New York: H. Liveright, 1931. Google Books. Web. 9 Apr. 2010. Johns, Orrick. Time of Our Lives; the Story of My Father and Myself. New York: Octagon, 1973. Print. Steffens, Lincoln. The Autobiography Of Lincoln Steffens. Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 1931. Web. Google Books. Thomas, Augustus. The Print Of My Remembrance. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1922. Google Books. Web. 9 Apr. 2010. Wells, Rolla. Episodes of My Life. St. Louis. W.J. McCarthy. 1933. Print. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS Kenneth G. Bellairs Papers, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis. David Rowland Francis Papers, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis. Julian S. Rammelkamp Papers, Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri – Columbia. HISTORIC ACCOUNTS: Behymer, F.A. “Simon Legree of the City Desk.” Page One [annual publication of the St. Louis chapter of the American Newspaper Guild], 1941.
115 [Type text] [Type text]
p. 11; p. 29. Found in the papers of Rammelkamp, Julian S. Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri – Columbia. Dilliard, Irving. “Mr. Bovard”. Page One [annual publication of the St. Louis chapter of the American Newspaper Guild], 1948: p. 12-13; p. 30. Found in the papers of Rammelkamp, Julian S. Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri – Columbia. Kelsoe, William A. St. Louis Reference Record: A Newspaper Man's Motion-Picture of the City. St. Louis: Van Hoffmann, 1927. University of Missouri Digital Library. Landau, Leo A. The Big Cinch. St. Louis. Franklin Co. 1910. Print. Tyrrell, Frank G. Political Thuggery. St Louis: Puritan, 1904. Print. Wetmore, Claude H. The Battle Against Bribery. St. Louis: Pan-American, 1904. Google Books. Web. 11 Apr. 2010. NEWSPAPER-RELATED BOOKS AND DIRECTORIES: Bates, Charles A. American Journalism From The Practical Side. New York: Holmes Publishing Co., 1897. Web. Google Books. Web. Edward R. Remmington’s Annual Newspaper Directory, 1898. Google Books. Web. Leonard, John W. The Book Of St. Louisans. St. Louis: The St. Louis Republic. 1906. Google Books. Web. Pettingill’s National Newspaper Directory and Gazetteer, 1899. Google Books. Web. Charles A. Fuller’s Advertisers Directory of Leading Newspapers and Magazines, 1901. Google Books. Web. The Dauchy Co.’s Newspaper Catalogue, 1904. Google Books. Web. PERIODICAL ARTICLES: Camp, Eugene M. "Cost of a Newspaper." Current Opinion Aug. (1890): pp. 134-35. Google Books. Current Advertising. Vol. 12. October (1902): pp. 19-24 Google Books. Creelman, James. “Joseph Pulitzer, Master Journalist.” Pearson’s Magazine. March (1909). pp. 229-247. Google Books.
116 [Type text] [Type text]
McAuliffe, Joseph J. "From Blacksmith to Boss." Leslie's Monthly Magazine. May 1904-Oct. 1904: pp. 635-39. Google Books. Reedy, William M. “The Myth Of A Free Press” St. Louis Medical Review. Dec. (1908): pp. 436-444. Google Books. Steffens, Lincoln. “Enemies of the Republic.” McClure’s Magazine. Nov. (1903). Google Books. Web. 13 Steffens, Lincoln. “The Shamelessness of St. Louis.” McClure’s Magazine. Nov. 1902-April 1903. pp. 545-560. Google Books. Wetmore, Claude and Steffens, Lincoln. “Tweed Days in St. Louis.” McClure’s Magazine. May (1902). pp. 577-586. Google Books. ACADEMIC WORK Sherman, Sidney A. “Advertising in the United States” Publications of the American Statistical Association. 7;52 (Dec, 1900), pp. 121-161 Wilcox, Delos F. “The American Newspaper: A Study in Social Psychology.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 16 (Jul. 1900) pp. 56-92. JSTOR. Web. 12 Feb. 2010. GOVERNMENT RECORDS Population of the 100 Largest Urban Places: 1860-1900." U.S. Bureau of the Census, 15 June 1998. Web. 17 Apr. 2010. MISCELLANEOUS Paxton, John A. The St. Louis Directory and Register. St. Louis, 1821. University of Missouri Digital Library. Web. 13 Apr. 2010. <http://digital.library.umsystem.edu/cgi-bin/Ebind2h3/merc1?seq=1>. Brann, William C. The Complete Works Of Brann, The Iconoclast. New York: Brann Publishers, 1919. Web. Google Books. SECONDARY SOURCES CONTEMPORARY HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY: Aucoin, James. The Evolution of American Investigative Journalism. Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri, 2005. Ebrary.com. Web. 3 May 2010.
117 [Type text] [Type text]
Baldasty, Gerald J. The Commercialization of News in the Nineteenth Century. Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin, 1992. Print. Byars, William V. "A Century Of Journalism In Missouri." The Missouri Historical Review XV.1 (1920): 53-73. Google Books. Web. 9 Apr. 2010 Dary, David. Red Blood & Black Ink: the Story of Journalism in the Old West. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1998. Print. Davis, Ronald L.F. "Community and Conflict in Pioneer St. Louis." The Western Historical Quarterly 10.3 (1979): 337-55. JSTOR. Daly, Chris. "The Historiography of Journalism History: Part 1: "An Overview"" American Journalism Winter (2009): 141-47. Communication and Mass Media Complete (EBSCOhost). Daly, Chris. "The Historiography of Journalism History: Part 2: "Toward a New Theory"" American Journalism Winter (2009): 148-155 . Communication and Mass Media Complete (EBSCOhost). Douglas, George H. The Golden Age of the Newspaper. Westport, Ct: Greenwood, 1999. Print. Federal Writers' Project. Missouri A Guide to the "Show Me" State. New York City: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1943. Google Books. Web. Fellow, Anthony R. American Media History. 2nd ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2010. Print. Geiger, Louis G. "Joseph W. Folk v. Edward Butler, St. Louis, 1902." The Journal of Southern History 28.4 (1962): 438-49. JSTOR. Web. Geiger, Louis G. Joseph W. Folk of Missouri. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1953. Print. Gleason, Timothy W. “The Libel Climate Of The Late Nineteenth Century: A Survey Of Libel Litigation 1884-1899.” Journalism Quarterly. 70:4 Winter (1993): 893-906 Graham, Thomas. “Charles H. Jones of the Post-Dispatch: Pulitzer’s Prize Headache”. Journalism Quarterly 56:4 Winter (1979): pp. 788-793, p. 802 [Web service] Web. 13 Feb. 2011. King, Homer W. Pulitzer's Prize Editor: a Biography of John A. Cockerill, 1845-1896. Durham, N.C.: Duke UP, 1965. Print.
118 [Type text] [Type text]
Leonard, Thomas C. The Power of the Press: The Birth of American Political Reporting. Oxford, UK. Oxford UP, 1986. Markham, James W. Bovard of the Post-Dispatch. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1954. Nord, David Paul. “The Urbanization of American Journalism.” Magazine of History. Spring (1992): pp. 20-25. JSTOR. Web. 15 Feb. 2010. Primm, James Neal. Lion of the Valley, St. Louis, Missouri. Boulder, Colo: Pruett Pub., 1981. Print. Putzel, Max. The Man in the Mirror: William Marion Reedy and his Magazine. Cambridge, Mass. Harvard UP. 1963. Print. Rafferty, Edward C. "The Boss Who Never Was." Gateway Heritage Winter (1992): 54-73. Print. Rammelkamp, Julian S. Pulitzer's Post-Dispatch, 1878-1883. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1967. Print. Rammelkamp, Julian S. “St. Louis: Boosters and Boodlers.” Bulletin of the Missouri Historical Society. 36. July (1978). pp. 200-210. Sandweiss, Lee Ann. Seeking St. Louis: Voices From A River City. 1670-2000. St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society, 2000. Print. Schudson, Michael. Discovering the News: a Social History of American Newspapers. New York: Basic, 1978. Print. Sloan, David W. Makers of the Media Mind: Journalism Educators and Their Ideas (excerpt). Hillsdale, N.J.: L. Earlbaum Associates, 1990. Google Books. Stevens, Walter B. St. Louis, The Fourth City, 1764-1911. St. Louis: S.J. Clarke Publishing. 1911. Google Books. Web. Teaford, Jon C. "Finis for Tweed and Steffens: Rewriting the History of Urban Rule." Reviews in American History 10.4 (1982): 133-49. JSTOR. Violette, Eugene M. A History of Missouri. Boston: D.C. Heath &, 1918. Google Books. INTERNAL HISTORICAL WORK
119 [Type text] [Type text]
“The Story Of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch” St. Louis: Pulitzer Publishing. 1957. Print. THESES AND DISSERTATIONS: Hart, Jim A. "A Historical Study of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 1852-1958" Diss. University of Missouri, 1959. Columbia: University of Missouri, 1959. Print. McConachie, Alexander S. "The "Big Cinch": A Business Elite In The Life Of A City, Saint Louis, 1895-1915." Diss. Washington University, 1976. Print. Nord, David Paul. “Newspapers and New Politics: Municipal Reform in Chicago and St. Louis, 1890-1900” Diss. University of Wisconsin – Madison, 1979. Print. Seeger, Jean L. "The Rhetoric of the Muckraking Movement in Saint Louis." Thesis. Washington University, 1955. Print.