BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

240 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
looced 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