Page:Barbarous Mexico.djvu/272

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BARBAROUS MEXICO

But let us note some of the journalistic antics of some other leading publishers. There is William Randolph Hearst, for example, proprietor of The Cosmopolitan Magazine and numerous daily newspapers in different parts of the country. There is no use of dwelling here upon the democratic and humanitarian professions of Mr. Hearst. Everybody knows that for the United States, and doubtless most other countries, he advocates democracy, freedom of speech, a free press, universal suffrage, regulation of predatory corporations, protection of labor. But Mr. Hearst's readers have just learned that for Mexico he is in favor of despotism, a police ruled press, no suffrage, unbridled corporations, and—slavery. I have never seen a more frantic apology for these institutions anywhere than is to be found in the March, April and May, 1910, numbers of the Cosmopolitan Magazine.

That Mr. Hearst was personally responsible for the publication of these articles is evidenced by an interview which he gave The Mexican Herald while in Mexico last March. Says that newspaper, under date of March 23:

"In reference to the stories attacking Mexico, which have been largely circulated recently, Mr. Hearst stated that he had looked after defending the good name of this country to the best of his ability. He placed two of his staff, Otheman Stevens and Alfred Henry Lewis, at work on matter pertaining to Mexico and much of the material collected by them had already appeared in some of his newspapers."

So headlong was Mr. Hearst's hurry to the defense of Diaz that he did not take time to secure writers familiar with the most primary facts about their subject, nor give them time to compare notes and avoid contradictions, nor give his editors time to verify ordinary