Forgive my sloth in reading the mail. Nonetheless: 

Swinton quoted in Labor's Untold Story provides context to the press banquet
toast that begins: "There is no such thing in America as an independent
press .. and ends with "We are intellectual prostitutes."

Swinton, for one, took seriously the adage to 'comfort the afflicted and
afflict the comfortable' -- and with elegance. He seems to have had what
Bush articulated as "that vision thing" and could as well have been
describing the 1980s as the 1880s.

>From Labor's Untold Story:

"Among this number of unreconstructed Abolitionists was the large and
Falstaffian John Swinton, whose life and words illuminate better than most
the quality of that brutal decade that was the eighties.  He was chief
editorial writer of the New York Times from 1860 to 1870 and later managing
editor of Dana's Sun. A reporter for Brooklyn's Daily Union described
Swinton's "large framed full-faced healthy complexion, big brown eyes" and
"sandy gray mustache." His head was bald," said the reporter, except for a
"rim of gray on the outlying county of an immense cranium." 

(The reporter) described Swinton as a "man who gives expression with
rapidity of utterance and eloquence, now and then illustrating his points
with a story, an illusion to history or some passage in the classics." 

In recapping the evening in question, Boyer and Morais write, "probably in
1880 when John Swinton, then the pre-eminent New York journalist, was the
guest of honor at a banquet given him by the leaders of his craft. Someone
who knew neither the press nor Swinton offered a toast to the Independent
Press. Swinton outraged his colleagues by replying: (as Christopher's
colleague types Brasch quoting Labor's Untold Story in the attached post). 

The Swinton quote does *not* appear to be out of character.

Boyer and Morais add:   

"His colleagues should not have been surprised. Even while respectably
employed Swinton had strained that employment to the utmost by speaking
truth as he saw it even though not allowed to write it. His entire history
should have warned them that he was not a conventional guest of honor. When
less than twenty he had risked his life in South Carolina where he subjected
himself to the possibility of a prison sentence by teaching Negro slaves to
read and write. The lessons took place at night in an underground vault.
John Brown was his hero. He had gone to Kansas in an attempt to help Brown's
fight against the proslavery Border Ruffians."

Boyer and Morais say Swinton first championed the labor movement following
the police assault on the unemployed at the Tompkins Square mass meeting in
1874 in New York and they discuss his reports of conditions in
Pennsylvania's coke regions. 

They wrote: "Shortly after his response to the independent press (toast)
Swinton resigned his editorship and started his own newspaper, a weekly
called John Swinton's Paper. Its masthead carried this statement of
principles: 1) Boldly upholding the Rights of Man in the American Way. 2)
Battling against the accumulating wrongs of society and industry. 3)
Striving for the organization and interests of workingmen, and giving the
news of the Trades and Unions. 4) Warning the American people against the
treasonable and crushing schemes of Millionaires, Monopolists and Plutocracy." 

Ron Paulson, what is the source for the three added sentences in your
original post? In the Boyer/Morais version (copied by Brasch), ellipsis
follow the third sentence that ends "they would never appear in print..." 

- ---- Bonnie Britt


>From: Christopher Harper 
>Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 08:55:38 -0500
>Subject: Swinton Quote
>
>A few days ago,  there was a posting about a quote from a New York Times 
>man about the "craft" of journalism.  I've asked some colleagues about the 
>accuracy of the quote and here's what we've come up with:
>
> Christopher: I have no independent knowledge about the Swinton
>     episode--yet. But Walter Brasch in Forerunners of Revolution
>     (pp. 23-25) tells it as follows:
>
>     1. Swinton was managing editor of the New York Sun and a
>        former chief editorial writer of the New York Times.
>
>     2. The words were uttered in 1880.
>
>     3. The occasion was "a banquet attended by leaders of
>        New York journalism to honor him . . . ."
>
>     As for the accuracy of the quotation as originally posted:
>
>     The portion in Brasch, which differs slightly and does not include
>     three sentences in the posted version, is as follows:
>
>     "There is no such thing in America as an independent press,
>     unless it is in the small towns. You know it and I know it.
>     There is not one of you who dares to write his honest opinions,
>     and if you did you know before hand that they would never appear
>     in print. . . . The business of the New York journalist is to
>     destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn
>     at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his race and country for his
>     daily bread. You know this and I know it, and what folly is
>     this to be toasting an 'Independent Press.' We are the tools
>     and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping-jacks;
>     they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our
>     possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men.
>     We are intellectual prostitutes."
>
>     Brasch cites as the source, Labor's Untold Story, by Richard O.
>     Boyer and Herbert M. Morais, p. 81.
>
>     Interesting research task here. Best wishes. 
>- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Ron Marmarelli
>Ron.S.Marmarelli@cmich.edu
>Department of Journalism
>Central Michigan University
>Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859
>(517) 774-7110
>- -- 
>
>Christopher Harper
>Director of Graduate Studies
>Department of Journalism
>New York University
>212-998-3846
>
>------------------------------
>From: Alan McConnell 
>Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 20:25:07 -0500 (EST)
>Subject: Provenance of quote
>
>I believe most of you have already seen the quote from "John Swent"
>("John Swinton"?) whose beginning I excerpt below.  My question to
>the august ensemble:  Is this quote _genuine_?  Did such a person
>really exist?(I never heard of him)
>
>Ron Paulson
>Free Speech Newspaper
>http://www.FreeSpeechNews.com/callme
>The problem is that Major Media IS Big Business. No need to go into who owns
>it. Even some local News Media is controlled by their major advertisers as
>to content. 
>
>I can't say it any better than John Swent:
>
>John Swinton, the former Chief of Staff of the New York Times, called by his
>peers, "The Dean of his profession," was asked in 1953 to give a toast
>before the NY Press Club:
>
>"There is no such thing at this date of the world's history, in America, as
>an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who
>dares to write your honest opinions and if you did, you know beforehand that
>it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest
>opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid
>similar salaries for similar things and any of you who would be so foolish
>as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another
>job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper,
>before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of a
>journalist is to destroy truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to
>fawn at the feet of mammon and to sell his country and his race for his
>daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an
>independent press? We are the tools and vassals for rich men behind the
>scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our
>talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men.
>We are intellectual prostitutes." 
>- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------


------------------------------

End of online-news-digest V1 #569
*********************************


From owner-online-news-digest@marketplace.com Fri Mar 22 23:56:53 1996
Received: from marketplace.com (majordom@marketplace.com [199.45.128.10]) by cnj.digex.net (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA19764 ; for ; Fri, 22 Mar 1996 23:56:50 -0500