William Randolph Hearst Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! == Political engagement == [[File:Friend of the Comic People 1906.jpg|thumb|A cartoon from the October 31, 1905 edition of ''[[Puck (magazine)|Puck]]'' magazine; seen as supporting "Hoist" in his bid for governor are [[Happy Hooligan]], [[Foxy Grandpa]], [[Alphonse and Gaston]], [[Buster Brown]], [[The Katzenjammer Kids]], and [[And Her Name Was Maud|Maud]] the mule. All of these comic strips ran in newspapers owned by Hearst.]] Hearst won two elections to [[United States Congress|Congress]], then lost a series of elections. He narrowly failed in attempts to become mayor of New York City in both [[1905 New York City mayoral election|1905]] and [[1909 New York City mayoral election|1909]] and [[governor of New York]] in 1906, nominally remaining a Democrat while also creating the [[United States Independence Party|Independence Party]]. He was defeated for the governorship by [[Charles Evans Hughes]].<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Randolph-Hearst|title=William Randolph Hearst {{!}} American newspaper publisher|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica|access-date=2017-08-22|language=en|archive-date=August 22, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170822185655/https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Randolph-Hearst|url-status=live}}</ref> Hearst's unsuccessful campaigns for office after his tenure in the House of Representatives earned him the unflattering but short-lived nickname of "William 'Also-Randolph' Hearst",<ref>{{cite book|last=Edson |first=Charles Leroy |page=[https://archive.org/details/gentleartofcolum00edso/page/34 34] |title=The Gentle Art of Columning: A Treatise on Comic Journalism |url=https://archive.org/details/gentleartofcolum00edso |publisher=[[Brentano's]] |date=1920 }}</ref> which was coined by [[Wallace Irwin]].<ref>{{cite magazine |page=545 |department=Interesting People |title=Wallace and Will Irwin |magazine=[[The American Magazine]] |date=March 1912 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZOMvAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA545 |access-date=May 23, 2015}}</ref> Hearst was on the left wing of the [[Progressive Movement]], speaking on behalf of the working class (who bought his papers) and denouncing the rich and powerful (who disdained his editorials).<ref>Roy Everett Littlefield, III, ''William Randolph Hearst: His Role in American Progressivism'' (1980)</ref> With the support of [[Tammany Hall]] (the regular Democratic organization in Manhattan), Hearst was elected to Congress from New York in 1902 and 1904. He made a major effort to win [[1904 United States presidential election|the 1904 Democratic nomination for president]], losing to conservative [[Alton B. Parker]].{{sfn|Nasaw|2000|pp=168–82}} Breaking with Tammany in 1907, Hearst ran for mayor of New York City under a third party of his own creation, the [[Municipal Ownership League]]. Tammany Hall exerted its utmost to defeat him.{{sfn|Nasaw|2000|pp=163, 172, 195–201, 205}}<ref>[[Ben H. Procter]], ''William Randolph Hearst: the early years, 1863–1910'' (1998) ch 8–11</ref> An opponent of the [[British Empire]], Hearst opposed American involvement in the First World War and attacked the formation of the [[League of Nations]]. His newspapers abstained from endorsing any candidate in 1920 and 1924. Hearst's last bid for office came in 1922, when he was backed by [[Tammany Hall]] leaders for the U.S. Senate nomination in New York. [[Al Smith]] vetoed this, earning the lasting enmity of Hearst. Although Hearst shared Smith's opposition to [[Prohibition in the United States|Prohibition]], he swung his papers behind [[Herbert Hoover]] in the 1928 presidential election.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |jstor = 25155325|title = California's Role in the Nomination of Franklin D. Roosevelt|journal = California Historical Society Quarterly|volume = 39|issue = 2|pages = 121–39|last1 = Posner|first1 = Russell M.|year = 1960|doi = 10.2307/25155325}}</ref> === Move to the right and break with Franklin D. Roosevelt === During the 1920s Hearst was a [[Jeffersonian democrat]]. He warned citizens against the dangers of big government and against unchecked federal power that could infringe on individual rights. When unemployment was near 25 percent, it appeared that Hoover would lose his bid for reelection in 1932, so Hearst sought to block the nomination of [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] as the Democratic challenger. While continuing to oppose Smith,<ref name=":0" /> he promoted the rival candidacy of [[Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Philippines|Speaker of the House]], [[John Nance Garner]], a Texan "whose guiding motto is ‘America First'" and who, in his own words, saw “the gravest possible menace” facing the country as “the constantly increasing tendency toward socialism and communism”.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Rauchway |first=Eric |date=2016-05-06 |title=How 'America First' Got Its Nationalistic Edge |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/william-randolph-hearst-gave-america-first-its-nationalist-edge/481497/ |access-date=2023-03-22 |website=The Atlantic |language=en}}</ref> At the Democratic Party Convention in 1932, with control of delegations from his own state of California and from Garner's home state of Texas, Hearst had enough influence to ensure that the triumphant Roosevelt picked Garner as his running mate. In the anticipation that Roosevelt would turn out to be, in his words, “properly conservative”, Hearst supported his election. But the rapprochement with Roosevelt did not last the year. The New Deal's program of unemployment relief, in Hearst's view, was “more communistic than the communist” and “un-American to the core”.<ref name=":0" /> More and more often, Hearst newspapers supported business over organized labor and condemned higher income tax legislation.<ref>{{cite book|first=Ben|last=Procter|title=William Randolph Hearst: The Later Years, 1911–1951 |url=https://archive.org/details/williamrandolphh00benp|url-access=registration|year=2007|publisher=Oxford UP|page=[https://archive.org/details/williamrandolphh00benp/page/248 248]|isbn=978-0195325348}}</ref> Hearst broke with FDR in spring 1935 when the president vetoed the Patman [[Adjusted Compensation Payment Act|Bonus Bill]] for veterans and tried to enter the [[Permanent Court of International Justice|World Court]].{{sfn|Nasaw|2000|pp=511–14}} His papers carried the publisher's rambling, vitriolic, all-capital-letters editorials, but he no longer employed the energetic reporters, editors, and columnists who might have made a serious attack. He reached 20 million readers in the mid-1930s. They included much of the working class which Roosevelt had attracted by three-to-one margins in the 1936 election. The Hearst papers—like most major chains—had supported the Republican [[Alf Landon]] that year.{{sfn|Nasaw|2000|pp=xiv, 515–17}}<ref>Rodney P. Carlisle, "William Randolph Hearst: A Fascist Reputation Reconsidered," ''Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly'' 50#1 (1973): 125–33.</ref> While campaigning against Roosevelt's policy of developing formal diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, in 1935 Hearst ordered his editors to reprint eyewitness accounts of the Ukrainian famine (the [[Holodomor]], which occurred in 1932–1933).<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Commentary Bk|date=1983|title=The Famine the "Times" Couldn't Find|url=https://www.commentary.org/articles/commentary-bk/the-famine-the-times-couldnt-find/|journal=Commentary|volume=November|pages=n. 3}}</ref> These had been supplied in 1933 by Welsh freelance journalist [[Gareth Jones (journalist)|Gareth Jones]],<ref name="WalesOnline">{{cite news|date=13 November 2009|title=Welsh journalist who exposed a Soviet tragedy|work=Wales Online, Western Mail and the South Wales Echo|url=http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/welsh-journalist-who-exposed-soviet-2069992}}</ref><ref name="SovietArticles">{{cite web|title=Famine Exposure: Newspaper Articles relating to Gareth Jones' trips to The Soviet Union (1930–35)|url=http://www.garethjones.org/soviet_articles/soviet_articles.htm|access-date=7 April 2016|work=garethjones.org}}</ref> and by the disillusioned [[Communist Party USA|American Communist]] [[Fred Beal]].<ref>{{Cite web|last=Mark|first=Brown|date=2009-11-13|title=1930s journalist Gareth Jones to have story retold|url=http://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/nov/13/gareth-jones-story-retold-documentary|access-date=2022-01-02|website=The Guardian|language=en}}</ref> ''[[The New York Times]],'' content with what it has since conceded was "tendentious" reporting of Soviet achievements, printed the blanket denials of its [[Pulitzer Prize]]-winning Moscow correspondent [[Walter Duranty]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=The New York Times Statement About 1932 Pulitzer Prize Awarded to Walter Duranty|url=https://www.nytco.com/company/prizes-awards/new-york-times-statement-about-1932-pulitzer-prize-awarded-to-walter-duranty/|access-date=2022-01-02|website=The New York Times Company|language=en-US}}</ref> Duranty, who was widely credited with facilitating the rapprochement with Moscow, dismissed the Hearst-circulated reports of man-made starvation as a politically motivated "scare story".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Gamache|first=Ray|date=2014|title=Breaking Eggs for a Holodomor: Walter Duranty, the New York Times , and the Denigration of Gareth Jones|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00947679.2014.12062918|journal=Journalism History|language=en|volume=39|issue=4|pages=208–218|doi=10.1080/00947679.2014.12062918|s2cid=142098495|issn=0094-7679|url-access=subscription}}</ref> In the articles, written by Thomas Walker, to better serve Hearst's editorial line against Roosevelt's Soviet policy the famine was "updated": the impression was created of the famine continuing into 1934. In response, [[Louis Fischer]] wrote an article in ''[[The Nation]]'' accusing Walker of "pure invention" because Fischer had been to Ukraine in 1934 and claimed that he had not seen famine. He framed the story as an attempt by Hearst to "spoil Soviet-American relations" as part of "an anti-red campaign".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Mace|first=James E.|date=1988|title=The Politics of Famine: American Government and Press Response to the Ukrainian Famine, 1932-33|url=https://shron1.chtyvo.org.ua/James_Mace/The_Politics_of_Famine_American_Government_and_Press_Response_to_the_Ukrainian_Famine_1932_1933_anhl.pdf?|journal=Holocaust and Genocide Studies|volume=3|issue=1|page= 81|doi=10.1093/hgs/3.1.75|pmid=20684118}}</ref> === Position regarding Germany === According to Rodney Carlisle, "Hearst condemned the domestic practices of Naziism, but he believed that German demands for boundary revision were legitimate. While he was not pro-Nazi, he accepted more German positions and propaganda than did some other editors and publishers."<ref>Rodney Carlisle, "The Foreign Policy Views of an Isolationist Press Lord: W. R. Hearst and the International Crisis, 1936-41" ''Journal of Contemporary History'' 9#3 (1974), pp. 217-227, quote at pp 220-221. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/260031 online]</ref> With “AMERICA FIRST” emblazoned on his newspaper masthead, Hearst celebrated the “great achievement” of the new [[Nazi Germany|Nazi regime]] in Germany—a lesson to all “liberty-loving people.” In 1934, after checking with Jewish leaders,{{sfn|Nasaw|2000|pp=496-97}} Hearst visited Berlin to interview [[Adolf Hitler]]. When Hitler asked why he was so misunderstood by the American press, Hearst retorted: "Because Americans believe in democracy, and are averse to dictatorship."<ref>{{cite book|first=Andrew|last=Nagorski|title=Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8KRh_hNVibMC&pg=PA176 |year=2012|page=176|publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1439191026}}</ref> William Randolph Hearst instructed his reporters in Germany to give positive coverage of the Nazis, and fired journalists who refused to write stories favourable of German fascism.<ref name=":1" /> Hearst's papers ran columns without rebuttal by Nazi leader [[Hermann Göring]], [[Alfred Rosenberg]],<ref name=":1" /> and Hitler himself, as well as Mussolini and other dictators in Europe and Latin America.{{sfn|Nasaw|2000|pp=470–77}} After the systematic massive Nazi attacks on Jews known as [[Kristallnacht]] (November 9–10, 1938), the Hearst press, like all major American newspapers, blamed Hitler and the Nazis: "The entire civilized world is shocked and shamed by Germany's brutal oppression of the Jewish people," read an editorial in all Hearst papers. "You [Hitler] are making the flag of National Socialism a symbol of national savagery," read an editorial written by Hearst.{{sfn|Nasaw|2000|p=554}} During 1934, Japan / U.S. relations were unstable. In an attempt to remedy this, Prince [[Tokugawa Iesato]] travelled throughout the United States on a goodwill visit. During his visit, Prince Iesato and his delegation met with William Randolph Hearst with the hope of improving relations between the two nations. Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page