“The Most Vindictive and Most Vengeful Power” Labor Confronts the Chicago Newspaper Trust

NOTES

• This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the 1990 conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in Minneapolis. It has benefitted greatly by comments on previous drafts by John Nerone, and by anonymous reviewers from the AEJMC and this journal. Research for this article was supported in part by a Dissertation Research Grant from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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• This research relies heavily upon the Victor Lawson papers, held at Chicago's Newberry Library (hereafter Lawson papers). In addition, I have reviewed Chicago Federation of Labor records, the papers of CFL President John Fitzpatrick, and issues of the Chicago American, Chicago Tribune, Chronicle, Daily Calumet, Daily Socialist, Day Book, Evening Journal, Evening Mail, Post, Times, and other Chicago newspapers.
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• Jon Bekken, “The Chicago Newspaper Scene: An Ecological Perspective.” Midwest Journalism History Convention (AEJMC), Chicago, April 1990. The number of daily newspapers rose steadily over the next fifty years. For a time there were as many as twelve English-language general circulation dailies, although by 1930 only seven of the city's thirty-eight daily newspapers fell in this category.
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• Donald Abramoske, “The Chicago Daily News: A Business History, 1875–1901,” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1963), 142–145.
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• Marshall Field, Freedom Is More than a Word (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1945), 126. The Tribune vetoed both City News and Associated Press service. By 1941 the Trust no longer maintained its distribution service, as the Tribune was the only surviving English-language morning daily.
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• This continues agreements in force from the 1890s. The original “By-Laws of the Daily Newspaper Association of Chicago” provided that “In case of natural disaster… any stockholder unable to issue regular edition(s) on time may demand of any other member reasonable facilities for issuance… In the event of a dispute between a stockholder of the Association and any of the labor unions of which its employees may be members, the question at issue may be submitted… for recommendation as to the position which the member shall take in the controversy. If the… tine of action recommended… shall result in a disturbance to its business by strike or otherwise, then all the other stockholders of the Association shall, upon demand, render to the said member all possible assistance and cooperation, regardless of loss or disadvantage resulting thereby to themselves. The penalty for refusal or failure… to render assistance… shall be $5,000.” Lawson papers.
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• Willis Abbot, “Chicago Newspapers and Their Makers.” Review of Reviews 11(6), June 1895, 646–647. See also Abramoske, and Edwin Emery, History of the American Newspaper Publishers Association (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1950), 47. Carbon copies of the Daily Newspaper Association By-Laws and Rules can be found in the Lawson papers, an 1891 Synopsis is appended. For an example of efforts to hold down editorial wages, see Lawson to Cornelius McAuliff, Post, 28 March 1892, protesting efforts to hire away City Press staff: “It was unanimously agreed that the papers should not disturb the bureau, nor the bureau the papers, by competitive offers to the employees…” Lawson papers. These understandings, not always honored, extended also to non-editorial employees. See, e.g., Lawson to Patterson, 27 May 1893, protesting the Tribune's hiring a worker from the News' mailing department at the extravagant wage of $30 a week.
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• Lawson to City Press Bureau, 6 December 1889; to James Scott, Herald, 16 December 1889; to Robert W. Patterson, Tribune, 17 March 1893. Lawson papers.
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• David Paul Nord, Newspapers and New Politics: Midwestern Municipal Reform, 1870–1900 (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1981). The harried streetcar operator finally bought the Inter-Ocean to secure a favorable editorial voice.
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• See, e.g., Chicago Daily Socialist, “Daily News Is In Big Steal,” 17 April 1909,3; N.D. Cochran, “The Beast of Big Business Back of the Assault on Free Speech and a Free Press,” Day Book, 29 March 1913, 6; Chicago Federation of Labor, Who is Back of the Gun Men?, Chicago 1913; and Chicago Daily Press, “When is Murder Murder?,” Reprint: Rogersville 1913. The latter two are in Box 1 of the John Fitzpatrick papers, Chicago Historical Society.
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• As late as 1936, former Chicago Tribune business manager Harrison Parker claimed that the Tribune's publisher headed “the crooked political dictatorship running Chicago.” (How the Chicago Tribune Cheated and Defrauded the State of Illinois of 87 Million Dollars in Capital Stock Taxes, Chicago, 1936) But Tribune writer Burton Rascoe argued that the paper had no political influence whatsoever and that its endorsed candidates were almost uniformly defeated. (Rascoe, Before I Forget, Garden City: Doubleday, 1937, 267–268).
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• “Ruth Hanna McCormick Faints When Scoring Trust Press to Store Girls,” Day Book, 9 April 1913, 2–3.
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• F.A. Russell, “The Newspaper and Periodical Publishing Industry in Illinois from 1880 to 1915” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois, 1916), 313–314; Abramoske, 142–145.
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• For an example of the Trust's coordinated bargaining stance see Wilson, Nixon, Medill, Scott and Lawson to Chicago Typographical Union #16, 29 April 1886 and subsequent correspondence through 29 May 1886 (the CTU unsuccessfully sought a wage increase); on blacklisting of strikers, see Lawson to Scott, 17 March 1893; on refusal to negotiate during strikes see, e.g., A. B. Adair (News foreman) to Chicago Typographical Union, 5 June 1891; on assistance in securing non-union employees see, e.g., Lawson to Patterson, 11 March 1896—all in Lawson papers.
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• Abramoske, 25, 91, 112, 127, 139. Abramoske draws upon many of the same sources cited in this research, but also upon Chicago Daily News business records which I have been unable to access. The two-cent agreement followed a price war in which all morning papers had been compelled to cut their price to one cent, after the failure of an effort by the two-cent morning papers to drive the one-cent Record out of the market by cutting it off from the distribution system. Publishers quickly patched their prior agreements back together to stem falling profits.
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• A. A. Domfeld, Behind the Front Page: The Story of the City News Bureau of Chicago (Chicago: Academy Chicago, 1983); Agreement signed by Wm. Penn Nixon, James Scott, V. F. Lawson, R. W. Patterson, Washington Hessing and H. J. Huiskamp, 13 August 1890; Lawson to James Scott, Herald, 12 Sept. 1890, and Lawson to Times, 14 July 1894, cutting off service at Herald request; and CPA By Laws. Lawson papers. Dornfeld notes that one daily laid off its entire local news staff, relying instead upon the City News report.
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• Victor Lawson to Carter Harrison, 28 October 1892. Lawson was protesting the Times' circulation building tactics. Lawson papers.
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• Abramoske, 113–119, 123.
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• Lawson to Herman Kohlsaat, Times-Herald, and others, 26 June 1896, Lawson papers. This letter was prompted by one from the Metropolitan Elevated Railroad. A few weeks later, Lawson arranged to have a list of the various agreements “made up and printed in such a form that it can be used in each office without any indication on the face that it stands for concerted action with other papers. This latter point, I think, it is wise to avoid putting in print and making known generally.” Lawson to Wm. Nixon, 3 July 1896.
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• “Synopsis of the Rules of the Chicago Daily Newspaper Association,” appended.
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• Lawson to James Keeley, Managing Editor, Tribune, 10 January 1899: “It is understood that unless unexpected developments come tonight no publication on the subject will be made… Not hearing from me you will understand that the other morning papers will print nothing…”
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• An example was a 22 December 1894 agreement by the evening papers not to issue extras on Christmas or New Year's Day. And the Association enforced these agreements. See, e.g., Lawson to Scott, Herald, 4 November 1886; to C. W. Boucher, Mail, 8 June 1888,20 July 1888 (which protests the Mail's appearance on the streets 1 minute early), 4 October 1888; to Thos. Strayer, Times, 22 May 1891; to Carter Harrison, Times, 8 January 1892 (“such methods are very bad ‘form,’ according to the ‘Newspaper Trust’ ethics”)—all from Lawson papers.
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• Lawson to W.E. Bond, Oakland Tribune, 28 May 1892. Lawson papers.
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• See, e.g., Chicago Daily Socialist, “Newspaper Fight Is All Over,” 12 July 1907, 3; and “Hearst Slugger Subs Newsboy,” 25 September 1909, 1. The Chicago newspaper wars have been extensively discussed; see, for example, John Cooney, The Annenbergs (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982); Ferdinand Lundberg, Imperial Hearst: A Social Biography (New York: Equinox Cooperative Press, 1936), 151–62; and Frank Waldrop, McCormick of Chicago (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1966), 90–93.
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• Lawson to Turner, 29 March 1900. The fighting involved the area between 18th and 35th streets. Lawson papers.
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• These promotions could be quite elaborate, ranging from giveaways of kitchenware to insurance policies. A competition between the Hearst papers and the Tribune resulted in a “Cheer Checks” cash give-away that cost the Tribune more than $53,000 over eight days, before the fight was abandoned. Waldrop, 94.
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• John Tebbel, An American Dynasty (Garden City: Doubleday, 1969), 108–110.
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• The ANPA was deeply concerned with labor policies from a very early date, proposing in 1890 the organization of local associations—perhaps modelled on Chicago's—to present a common front in bargaining on wages, hours and working conditions. Emery, 47.
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• Russell, 258. Some foreign-language newspapers may have had some form of ANPA affiliation, however. When the Mailers were asked, at a Chicago Federation of Labor meeting (Minutes, 2 June 1912), whether they had a contract with any trust paper, they cited a contract with Abendpost.
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• See, for example, CFL Minutes for 2 August 1903; 18 October 1903; 11 January 1911; and 6 October 1912. Lawson to McKinney (Ayer's), 7 March 1899. Lawson papers.
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• CFL Minutes, 3 May 1903; 7 June 1903; 2 August 1903; 18 October 1903. All reprinted in Union Labor Advocate, June-November, 1903.
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• N.D. Cochran, “The Beast of Big Business Back of the Assault on Free Speech and a Free Press,” Day Book, 29 March 1913; N.D. Cochran, “Trial of the Newspaper Gunmen who Murdered Frank Witt Put Off Again,” Day Book 21 June 1913, 1 +. Even McCormick's highly sympathetic biographer, Frank Waldrop (186–187), discusses charges that the Tribune brought in mobsters to control its drivers, though he downplays the seriousness of the incidents.
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• ANPA Minutes, 24 October 1912. Box 1, John Fitzpatrick papers. Extensive documents on the 1912 strike and its lengthy aftermath can be found in the Fitzpatrick papers. Philip Taft provides a useful, if unsympathetic, overview of the conflict in his “The Limits of Labor Unity: The Chicago Newspaper Strike of 1912,” Labor History 19 (1, 1978): 100–129.
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• Ibid.
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• “Hearst Rowdies Attack Newsies,” Chicago Daily Socialist, 25 March 1909, 1.
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• “Ban Removed From Newsboys,” Chicago Daily Socialist, 26 March 1909, 1.
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• “Dealers War on Chicago Papers,” Chicago Daily Socialist, 3 December 1907, 1; “Newsdealers In Grip of Papers,” 4 December 1907, 1; “Newsies Scare Sunday Papers,” 22 January 1908, 1.
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• “Newsboys To Sue Victor Lawson Newspaper Trust,” Chicago Daily Socialist, 20 September 1907, 2.
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• “News Stands on Chicago Streets,” (editorial) Chicago Daily Socialist, 26 March 1909, 6.
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• Zonita Stewart Jeffrys, “The Attitude of the Chicago Press Toward the Local Labor Movement, 1873 to 1879” (Master's thesis, University of Chicago, 1936) David Nord, “The Business Values of American Newspapers: The 19th Century Watershed in Chicago,” Journalism Quarterly 61 (Summer 1984): 265–73. Nord argues that newspapers came to share progressive values during this period. But their hostility to strikes, their reliance on arbitration to break the power of the newspaper unions, and the government's tendency to support management during strikes convinced the labor movement that such “progressivism” was at best a hollow sham.
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• Chicago Tribune, editorial, 11 May 1886.
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• “Million Against Million,” Union Labor Advocate, November 1910, 74.
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• George Seldes, Lords of the Press (New York: Julian Messner, 1938), 47; Slason Thompson, Way Back When (Chicago: H. G. Adair, 1930), 297–98.
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• Lawson to Melville Stone, 28 May 1886.
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• Lawson to Patterson (Tribune), 11 March 1896; Bowman (Pressmen's Union) to News & Record I.T.U. Chapels, 17 April 1899. Both in Lawson papers.
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• The Union Labor Advocate had its status as the CFL's official organ revoked a few years later due to longstanding objections from CFL delegates to its advertising policies.
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• “‘Go Beyond Law,’ Unions Advised by Labor Chief,” Inter-Ocean, 6 January 1913; in Scrapbook 1912–1925 in Fitzpatrick papers.
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• Reprinted in Chicago Federation of Labor Minutes, 19 October 1913, 12–13.
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• Letter from J. Fitzpatrick and E. Nockels to Affiliated CFL Locals, 20 November 1918. Fitzpatrick papers. Shortly afterwards, the Federation established the weekly The New Majority as its official organ. Efforts to increase frequency and to promote the paper beyond union ranks failed.
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• E.N. Nockels, “A Letter to the Chicago Tribune,” The New Majority, 6 December 1919, 3.
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• “The Kept Press,” The New Majority, 8 February 1919, 14.
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• Daily Labor World 3(23), 27 January 1900. Two pages of what was presumably a four-page issue are held by the Chicago Historical Society.
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• In 1912 the CFL approved a resolution declaring that “Hearst's character and conduct, industrially, politically and journalistically, are so saturated with egotism, ambition and avarice as to place him outside of the pale of influence with any self-respecting, liberty-loving organization” and blasting the Hearst press' “maliciously vicious lies, distorted facts, [and] innuendo of the most scurrilous type.” Adopted 3 March 1912. The text was reprinted as “Organized Labor Speaks,” Union Labor Advocate, 30 March 1912, 8.
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• Chicago Daily Illustrated Times, 3 September 1920, p. 23, cited by Mary Ann Weston, “Chicago's Tabloid Times: Jazz Journalism in the Windy City.” Paper presented to American Journalism Historians Association, Atlanta, October 1989, 9.
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• Undated typescript, in Lawson papers, 26 January 1891–9 July 1891, 330–31. The agreement was amended from time to time, and supplemented by special agreements. In 1893, for example, the Association decided “On and after Nov. 1st, 1893, marriage, birth and death notices shall be charged for at the rate of fifty cents for five lines or less…” (Lawson to Scott, 20 December 1893; citing minutes for 26 October). On 5 May 1896, morning publishers agreed not to send papers to Peoria or Indianapolis in advance of the usual mail service. And on 11 May 1895 publishers agreed not to use vending machines to sell newspapers.
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