Forrester Thesis

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EMERSON COLLEGE GRADUATE STUDIES “BOODLE” IN THE NEWS: COMMERCIALIZATION AND COMMODIFICATION OF JOURNALISM AND THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH’S COVERAGE OF THE “CENTRAL TRACTION” SCANDALS, 1898-1904 A Master’s Thesis Submitted by John S. Forrester To the Graduate Faculty of Emerson College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Journalism. Emerson College Boston, Massachusetts August 2011

Transcript of Forrester Thesis

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EMERSON COLLEGE GRADUATE STUDIES

“BOODLE” IN THE NEWS: COMMERCIALIZATION AND COMMODIFICATION OF JOURNALISM

AND THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH’S COVERAGE OF THE “CENTRAL TRACTION” SCANDALS, 1898-1904

A Master’s Thesis

Submitted by

John S. Forrester

To the Graduate Faculty of Emerson College

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree

of Master of Arts

in

Journalism.

Emerson College

Boston, Massachusetts August 2011

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“BOODLE” IN THE NEWS: COMMERCIALIZATION AND COMMODIFICATION OF JOURNALISM

AND THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH’S COVERAGE OF THE “CENTRAL TRACTION” SCANDALS, 1898-1904

John S. Forrester Approved as to style and content by: _______________________________________________________ Melinda Robins, Chairperson of Committee Date ________________________________________________________ Emmanuel Paraschos, Graduate Program Director Date

__________________________________________________ Emmanuel Paraschos Date

Graduate Program Director Department of Journalism

________________________________________________________

Richard Zauft, Dean of Date Graduate Studies

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To my great aunt

Eunice Maxwell Howard

Emerson College Graduate and Professor Actress, Radio Star, Dancer, Aviator

The story of your life inspires me.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many thanks are owed to my mom, Katherine Forrester for her constant support and emergency tech support. Thank you to Melinda Robins and Manny Paraschos for believing in me, and this project. Merci for the edits Melinda, I will never use ‘towards’ again. My dad, John Forrester Sr., helped with ideas and listened to my early fragmented explanations of what the project was. Alex Pearlman, Ryan Lee, Ryan Hill, Ashley Lynn, and Christopher and Lily Brenneck helped edit, listen to ideas, read drafts, and/or provided immoral support.

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Abstract

BOODLE” IN THE NEWS: COMMERCIALIZATION AND COMMODIFICATION OF JOURNALISM

AND THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH’S COVERAGE OF THE “CENTRAL TRACTION” SCANDALS, 1898-1904

By

John S. Forrester

Emerson College

August, 2011

This thesis presents historical analysis of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s crusade against municipal corruption from 1898 to 1904 and its promotion of an image of oligarchical control of local affairs. Viewing the case in the context of the theories of commercialization and commodification, it is shown that the newspaper’s coverage was a reflection of both its financial interests (to build circulation and advertising) and journalists’ zeal for reform (using news to affect real change). Capitalistic for-profit orientation enabled the Post-Dispatch to expose officials’ wrongdoing, but hindered other local newspapers, which were essentially muzzled by owners and advertisers.

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TABLE  OF  CONTENTS    INTRODUCTION                                                                                                                                                                                                                  6    Overview  Methodology  Literature  Review    CHAPTERS:    I.  ST.  LOUIS  AND  ITS  PRESS  AT  THE  TURN  OF  THE  CENTURY                                    28    II.  HISTORY  OF  THE  POST-­‐DISPATCH’S    “CENTRAL  TRACTION”  SCANDAL  COVERAGE,  1898-­‐1904                                                  46    III.  COMMENTARY  ON  COMMODIFICATION                                                                                                        80    IV.  CONCLUSION                                                                                                                                                                                                          103        BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                                                                                                                                                                              114  

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INTRODUCTION

A. OVERVIEW

“One Hundred Miles of Streets, Belonging to the People of St. Louis,

Shamelessly Turned Over to a Private Company for Purposes Wholly

Unnecessary.”1 Nestled behind news of a coming war with Spain, this

subhead on page six of the April 13, 1898 issue of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

heralded the first article of a six-year crusade exposing bribery and corruption

in the municipal government of St. Louis, Missouri.

The article covered the passage of legislation in the city’s Municipal

Assembly known as the “Central Traction” bill that allowed a corporation the

privilege of consolidating the city’s half-dozen independent streetcar lines into

a monopoly. In the days after the bill’s approval, the Post-Dispatch charged

that some assemblymen received “boodle,” or bribe in the local parlance of

the time, to ensure the bill’s passage. Prodding by the paper nudged a grand

jury into an investigation. The circuit court2 ordered the jury to indict officials

or charge the paper with criminal libel. Neither occurred. The Post-Dispatch’s

information could not be found libelous, nor could the jury find sufficient

evidence to indict specific officials, though the body reported that bribery was

involved in the measure’s passage.

                                                                                                               1  “Other  15  –  No  Title”  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch.  13  Apr.  1898:  6    2  A  local  term  for  District  Court  at  the  time.  

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The crusade against the street railroad “franchise grabbers” was

somewhat tempered until early 1902 when an opportunistic circuit attorney3

named Joseph W. Folk began prosecuting officials and promoters involved in

the Central Traction bill. The circuit attorney’s investigations and indictments

were predominantly the result of journalists’ footwork. While the Post-

Dispatch was an ardent supporter of reform and Folk’s political career in

general, the other major English language daily newspapers of St. Louis were

hesitant to embrace coverage and editorials critical of the decades-old system

of municipal corruption.

The alleged backers of the bill, and other corrupt legislation and

business deals, comprised a group that became known as the “Big Cinch” in

the early twentieth century. Its membership consisted of twenty or so leading

members of political, financial and commercial circles, who were said to

control St. Louis’ political offices, industry, financial institutions and other

major businesses for their own collective benefit. There is truth to the

mythology, but at the same time, scholars have concluded the “Big Cinch”

specter was also a perpetuation of a decades-old image of local oligarchical

control and the product of a personal vendetta held by Joseph Pulitzer, the

Post-Dispatch’s founder and owner. The legend of the “Big Cinch” persisted

well into the twentieth century.

Exposés and crusades were not new elements of journalism,

particularly at the Post-Dispatch. From its founding in 1878, the afternoon

                                                                                                               3  A  term  for  District  Attorney.    

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daily was dedicated to exposing the corruption of St. Louis’ political and

business elite. In fact, criticizing (or, perhaps more accurately, attacking) the

city’s leading figures for corrupt or immoral behavior – real or invented – was

somewhat of a tradition in St. Louis, dating back to the appearance of its first

newspaper, the Missouri Gazette in 1808. Over the course of a century, editors

and journalists in St. Louis, channeling partisan or personal animosities,

created the perception that the political and commercial affairs of St. Louis

were selfishly controlled by small groups of wealthy men.

While its cast of characters shifted over time, the narrative of local

domination by a cadre of elites was well established by the founding of

Pulitzer’s paper. From the mid 1800s to the turn of the century, the image of

the group’s members transitioned from the patriarchal French and American

merchant families of “old” St. Louis to a microcosmic melting pot of deep-

rooted families and newly-arrived European immigrants and financiers from

the eastern United States. This cast change reflected the growth of St. Louis

into the nation’s fourth largest city.4

By 1898, the organized system of graft “got out of hand,” as one

contemporary historian puts it, dividing the city’s leading figures by those

who wanted to preserve the status quo and those who urged for political and

social reform.5 Laid out in a 61-square mile patchwork of ethnic and socio-

economic distinct neighborhoods, St. Louis at the turn of the century was a

humming metropolis with a myriad of political, social, civic and commercial

                                                                                                               4  See  Rammelkamp,  1978,  pp.  200-­‐201;  Primm,  1981,  pp.  113-­‐117;  pp.  375-­‐380  5  Rammelkamp,  1978,  p.  203  

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concerns. As the city’s population swelled with waves of immigrants and

other newcomers, an expansive system of public street rail transportation

developed, enabling the growth of a downtown commercial center, where

numerous department stores and other retailers opened.

The creation of a mass transit system and a powerful downtown retail

industry contributed to the growth of St. Louis’ newspaper industry and the

beginning of a transition that moved some papers away from partisanship to

focusing on advertising and circulation profits in the 1890s.6 Despite these

ongoing changes, St. Louis’ newspapers covered the ill deeds of the city’s

leading figures for decade after decade with little impact other than libel suits

and the occasional fist fight or duel.

In October 1902, the nation’s attention was drawn to local troubles by

“Tweed Days In St. Louis” in McClure’s Magazine, mostly written by Claude

H. Wetmore, city editor of the Post-Dispatch from 1898 to 1900, and edited

by Lincoln Steffens. Scholars consider their work as one of the first articles of

the Muckraking Era.7 Taking the imagery of the “Big Cinch” fashioned by

Pulitzer’s paper, Steffens repackaged the legend with his own social and

political perspectives for national audiences. What makes the Post-Dispatch’s

coverage and assistance in the “Central Traction” case noteworthy is that

unlike previous crusades, the newspaper contributed to a metamorphosis in

local and national journalism.

                                                                                                               6  Nord,  1992,  pp.  20-­‐25  7  Leonard,  p.  159;  Fellow,  2010,  p.  182  

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In journalism, the paper’s coverage of the Central Traction exposes

and prosecutions marks a moment where a road diverged in journalistic

practice: The Post-Dispatch, from its founding by Joseph Pulitzer, had forged

a distinct style of investigative, advocacy journalism, embodied by its

aggressive exposures of local corruption. Muckraking magazine journalist

Lincoln Steffens and other writers took the well-traversed road of

sensationalism and moralizing, emulating and amplifying the style of early

Pulitzer-style crusades.8

At the same time, some of St. Louis’ editors and reporters were

building a sense of professionalism based on fealty to accurate, impartial truth

telling. Their reconfiguration of Pulitzer’s crusade model moved investigative

journalism toward a more pure, fact-based form, following the natural currents

of news instead of forcing divinations of evils. Decades before the

development of an national, industry-wide code of ethics, these journalists

were engaging in discourse over the nature of what journalism is and how

stories should be told.

The coverage of “boodle” in the Central Traction bill also marks a

point of demarcation between the partisan and “independent” newspapers in

St. Louis: The Post-Dispatch’s editorial line of egalitarianism and non-

partisanship paid off. Some of the city’s other daily newspapers, burdened by

party bias and financial connections to St. Louis’ elite, slipped in circulation

and advertising patronage after the incident. The Post-Dispatch became the

                                                                                                               8  See  Leonard,  1986,  chapter  6  

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dominant daily of St. Louis. Ultimately, this can be viewed as a demonstration

of the triumph of Pulitzer’s business model over the city’s partisan

curmudgeons that were slow to evolve.

The city of St. Louis and state of Missouri experienced a period of

reform in politics and local and state government in the wake of the period.

The city’s dailies, particularly the Post-Dispatch, contributed funds and

information to officials investigating corruption. Journalists’ reporting

directly contributed to indictments of local officials and businessmen involved

in bribery.

In laying out the history of the paper’s coverage from 1898 to 1904,

the peak years of exposures and legal actions for bribery in municipal affairs,

and providing primary source perspectives on the effects of the crusade on

newspapers and the city, this thesis presents evidence that the Post-Dispatch’s

coverage of the “Central Traction” bill and resulting prosecutions stimulated

editorial and business developments within St. Louis’ newspaper industry and

sparked commentary on press commercialization and commodification of

news by local journalists, politicians, and the community.

This thesis suggests that the paper’s crusade stemmed from a

combination of economic opportunity, competitive need, and a genuine zeal

for reform. During this period, the Post-Dispatch, journalists and some

members of the community cast the crusade and the resulting prosecutions as

a triumph of “independent” journalism. Examining the economic conditions

behind the crusade, it is this thesis’ view that capitalistic orientation played

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both a negative and positive role in local English daily newspapers’ ability, or

willingness, to expose corruption in municipal affairs.

Because the author of this thesis did not have time or financial

resources to examine the personal correspondence and business files of Joseph

Pulitzer at Columbia University in New York City or the Library of Congress,

these primary sources on the internal business operations of the Post-Dispatch

were unexamined. Though this could represent a weakness of the thesis,

available resources provided a variety of period perspectives on the local

newspaper industry including some Pulitzer editors and subordinates, local

journalists, a reforming clergyman, an idealistic St. Louis businessman, and

other local figures. To the author of this thesis, this multitude of observers is a

positive aspect, in that the perspective of the Post-Dispatch’s management

does not dominate the text.

The major questions of interest to journalism history scholars presented by the

case are:

[1] Did for-profit orientation hinder or enable the turn of the century Post-

Dispatch in the “Central Traction” exposures?

[2] Was this incident an example of the triumph of journalism as a capitalistic

enterprise or a reflection of the industry’s emerging dictum of impartial public

service? Or was it both?

As some media critics are questioning the for-profit orientation of

newspapers and integrity of journalism in 2011, and traditional newspaper

business models are on the verge of crumbling, it is valuable for modern

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observers to see that journalists were dealing with many of the same pressures

that news professionals today encounter: Namely the challenge of efficiently

serving the public’s information needs at ever-increasing speeds, while also

pleasing advertisers and whomever was financially vested in the news

organization.

Scholars generally view commercialization and commodification as

negative influences on journalism. This thesis offers insight into the positive

effects of these two conditions in addition to the negative, challenging the

inherent scholarly bias against capitalism-oriented news organizations.

Evidence presented in this thesis could contribute to a reassessment of these

two theories: The concepts are one sided and static, displaying an ignorance of

economic and political changes over time.

B. METHODOLOGY

This paper intends to present a historical analysis of the Post-Dispatch’s

exposures of corruption from 1898 to 1904, and its advancement of the “Big

Cinch” legend, within the context of turn of the century news

commercialization and commodification. This author will outline the history

of the paper’s Central Traction crusade and its connection to an image of

upper class hegemony; provide primary source evidence of commentary on

the commercial nature of journalism sparked by this coverage; and provide

analysis of observers’ perspectives.

The research aim of this thesis is to explore how commercialization and

commodification of news in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

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negatively or positively impacted municipal corruption coverage by the Post-

Dispatch and competing local dailies. Broadly, this thesis looks at how the

news business co-exists with sources of financial and political power. The

source of the signature at the bottom of journalists’ paychecks has consistently

remained under scrutiny, from the partisan press to corporate bloggers in the

twenty-first century.

The theory of commercialization, defined by scholar Denis McQuail,

is a progression where the content and organization of the press become

“governed” by capitalistic concerns.9 In the partisan press, editors were

financially and editorially tied to the will of political parties. As the press

commercializes, newspaper owners or stakeholders and advertisers become its

primary benefactors. One might assume that, liberated from the vestiges of

partisan influence, a commercialized press could enable publishers and editors

to embrace editorial independence and public service. McQuail notes that in

this theory’s interpretation the exact opposite occurs: In striving to please

newspaper stockholders and advertisers, commercialized media forfeits its

editorial independence by focusing efforts on the production of homogenized

content to draw mass audiences and maximum advertising revenue.10

Commercialization compromises the press’ integrity as a trustworthy news

source as editorial content drifts to sensationalism and intrinsically promotes

consumerism and materialism.11

                                                                                                               9  McQuail,  2005,  p.  550  10  ibid  11  ibid  

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Related to commercialization, the theory of news commodification is a

concept emerging from Marxist theory that views messages in news content

(like ideas, morals and values) as a commodity that can develop a monetary

value.12 These messages in the news are sold like any other product to an

audience, who then circulate or exchange them within their community and

families. The audience’s spread of the messages furthers a fabricated sense of

awareness of the world and its issues that renders the public subordinate to the

societal status quo reflected in the news.13 The audience, in this theory’s view,

is also a commodity that can be purchased by advertisers for promotional

needs.

This thesis examines the role of commercialization in St. Louis’

newspaper market, particularly the Pulitzer paper, to gauge whether for-profit

orientation hindered or supported the press’ ability or willingness to reveal

corruption in local affairs. Based on evidence presented below, it appears that

the newspapers’ capitalistic focus both worked for and against journalists who

desired to serve the public’s interest by exposing the conditions. Viewing the

incident in the context of theory of commodification, this thesis asserts that

the Post-Dispatch capitalized on news of local reform efforts, the prosecutions

and political career of Joseph W. Folk, and the promotion of the “Big Cinch”

legend to best competitors in the local newspaper market. In turn, other

newspapers and writers (locally and nationally) attempted to mirror the Post-

Dispatch’s financial success and ability to influence public opinion by

                                                                                                               12  McQuail,  2005,  p.  550  13  McQuail,  2005,  p.  550    

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implementing the paper’s messages of elite dominance, support for local

reform and praise of prosecutions of corrupt figures.14

The research approach is historical analysis that encompasses a recent

“economic/cultural” theory of journalism history recently proposed by

journalism historian Chris Daly that assumes changes in editorial content over

time are the result of economic changes in the industry and its surroundings. 15

Alterations in news organizations’ business models, practices, and ethos,

according to Daly, should be analyzed based on the following assumptions:

(1) production of the news is an “economic enterprise,” and it is essential to

take their business models into account; (2) developments in journalism

practice are results of broader economic changes; and (3) when economic

change occurs, tension between the new business system and the existing

“culture of news” arise, resulting in a re-interpretation of values, practices and

philosophy of the culture surrounding newsgathering.16

This thesis takes Daly’s theory into account by incorporating the idea that

the developments in editorial coverage of local politics and elites were

influenced by the commercial nature of the newspaper business, competitive

nature of the local media landscape, and local and national economic

conditions and developments. Attention is paid to the business end of the

newspapers, and whatever advertising, ownership or other financial-related

                                                                                                               14  The  vigor  and  depth  of  support  varied  from  newspaper  to  newspaper,  as  partisan  allegiances  still  existed  in  most  of  city’s  dailies.  They  generally  came  to  support  reform  and  prosecutions  of  corrupt  officials  and  businessmen.  Backing  of  circuit  attorney  Folk  was  not  uniform,  particularly  regarding  his  political  career  and  1904  bid  for  governor.    15  See  Daly,  2009,  part  2,  pp.  148-­‐155  16  ibid  

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connections the press may have had to Edward Butler and the elite members

of the “Big Cinch.”

Discussion of class tensions is unavoidable in any work involving the

press and the Progressive Era, especially in St. Louis’ setting of government

and corporate corruption. The theme of big business versus common people

was a prevalent in the period’s newspaper articles, rhetoric of reformers and

their opponents, and scholarly work.

Discussions of class tensions and the theme of corrupt government and

business versus the people is unavoidable in any work involving the press and

the Progressive era - a prevalent feature of newspaper articles, the rhetoric of

reformers and their opponents, and scholarly work done as events were

unfolding and through the twentieth century. The relationship of social class

to media, Marxist theory, has become a significant topic in contemporary

communications research. The term “elite” in this paper is meant to depict

wealthy white male residents of St. Louis who were leading figures in the

business, political, and/or civic affairs of the city.

Attempting to provide a factual representation of events, this thesis

acknowledges the importance of taking socio-economic backgrounds, political

leanings, financial interests, and other influences impacting the rhetoric or

bias behind the statements of period observers.

Due to time and financial constraints, the papers of Joseph Pulitzer at

Columbia University and New York City and the Library of Congress in

Washington D.C. were not examined by the author. This presents a weakness

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of this paper, given Pulitzer’s ownership and editorial control of the Post-

Dispatch, personal history, and interest in politics. There are also undoubtedly

more primary source documents related to the topic that are yet to be

discovered in the libraries of St. Louis, the state of Missouri and elsewhere.

C. LITERATURE REVIEW

Existing contemporary academic work consulted in the process of

researching this paper focused on commercialization and commodification of

news in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in general; the history and

commercialization of St. Louis press; works related to the incident and the

reform movement of St. Louis.

Contemporary scholars have sought to either verify the validity of the

“Big Cinch” legend or define the group’s role in municipal affairs within the

context of political science or reform ideology. Historians have pointed out

newspapers’ role in swaying public opinion towards reform and their

propagation of an image of dominance by elite figures. Few have considered

the context of local newspapers’ financial conditions and incentives during

this period in furthering the “Big Cinch” mythology, covering issues of

corruption and promoting reform.

A central theme of the “Big Cinch” legend was that its members

controlled most of St. Louis’ newspapers, creating a culture of silence that

permeated for decades until the Post-Dispatch “decided’ to expose it all. In

his comprehensive examination of the economic realities behind the “Big

Cinch” legend, historian Alexander Scot McConachie surmises that the

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history St. Louis’ newspaper industry in the early twentieth century indicates

that this was not true. He cites the Republic as an example, a paper owned by

alleged Cinch member David R. Francis and considered the voice of the “Big

Cinch,” that eventually went bankrupt in 1919.17 But McConachie was not a

scholar of journalism history. His examination of the relationship between

newspapers and the “Big Cinch” was limited and was chiefly confined to the

twentieth century.

American journalism has a long tradition of exposés and investigative

journalism. The partisan-backed newspapers of the early nineteenth century

regularly included exposés of government corruption (typically national or

state) in their columns, usually with the aim of discrediting figures associated

with rival parties.18 This trend continued in the era of the commercialized

newspaper, with its chief aim to bolster circulation to bring in advertising

revenue.

The Post-Dispatch was exposing graft in local government for over

twenty years before national muckraking magazines, like McClure’s and the

Atlantic, cast national attention on the city’s municipal problems, scholars

point out.19 Pulitzer’s shift to “independent,” non-partisan journalism in the

late nineteenth century and the his paper’s relentless crusades against

municipal corruption in the 1880’s can be attributed to increased profit

opportunities, political developments and a growing public demand for

                                                                                                               17  McConachie,  1976,  p.  153  18  Aucoin,  2005,  pp.  22-­‐23  19  Rammelkamp,  1967,  [pages];  Primm,  1981,  p.  378.  Leonard,  1986,  pp.  173-­‐[finish]  

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scandals covered in literary, rather than partisan, style, concludes historian

Thomas Leonard.20 The Post-Dispatch took advantage of the development of

the city’s “centralized market,” writes Leonard, embracing advertising and

mass audiences, while the partisan papers were “too distracted, too

accustomed to insulting readers outside the party,” to quickly adapt to the

nascent environment of newspaper commercialism.21

Prior to the national attention generated by the Post-Dispatch’s

coverage of the Central Traction exposures and subsequent trials, Leonard

writes, the newspaper’s crusades against local corruption in the 1880s and

1890s “illustrate how a stone may drop, with a small splash and no ripples.”22

Between 1879, shortly after the founding of the Post-Dispatch and October

1902, when Steffens and Wetmore’s story appeared in McClure’s Magazine,

Leonard’s research found, most national magazine articles written on St.

Louis portray its municipal government as a national example of democratic

rule.23 The nation, Leonard asserts, dismissed the local papers’ allegations of

official wrongdoing until Lincoln Steffens’ articles.24 The early crusades,

however, did increase the paper’s circulation.

Connecting the Pulitzer paper’s exposés in the 1880s to Steffens’

magazine articles at the turn of the century, Leonard’s discussion is primarily

focused on showing how the Post-Dispatch’s early crusade techniques led to

                                                                                                               20  Leonard,  1986,  p.  165  21  Leonard,  1986,  pp.  174-­‐175  22  Leonard,  1986,  p.  169  23  ibid.    24  Leonard,  1986,  p.  192  

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muckraking. The lasting impacts of Pulitzer’s paper on the local newspaper

industry are not examined, nor were the challenges presented to the city’s

dailies by the city’s powerful business interests.

Gerald Baldasty, one of the first contemporary historians to

comprehensively examine the commercialization of news in the nineteenth

century, writes that the shift from partisan to profit-oriented newspapers

occurred because of three major changes: An evolution in the way publishers

viewed newspapers’ business side; new views on the proper role of the press

in society; and technological developments and competitive pressures that

increased the speed and complexity of reporting and printing the news. 25

Baldasty views advertising as a major boon for the rise of independent

journalism. Beginning in the late 1890s, businesses increasingly thought of

advertising in newspapers as a necessity for profitability as growing

circulations enabled businesses to forge a direct link with a large array of

potential consumers.26 Department stores were “particularly dependent” on

newspaper advertising because their business model relied on high levels of

foot traffic to quickly turn over on hand stock.27 Along with developments in

marketing was the rise of national distribution of consumer goods like patent

medicines, cookies, and whiskey. By the end of the 1800s, most urban

                                                                                                               25  Baldasty,  1992,  p.  4  26  Baldasty,  1992,  pp.  55-­‐56  27  Baldasty,  1992,  p.  57  

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newspapers contained a mixture of local and national ads, with department

stores as their most lucrative clients.28

Advertisers frequently attempted to pressure editors to publish “bright

and entertaining” content that did not conflict with their personal, commercial

or political interests.29 Papers that strayed were boycotted. Beyond

advertisers’ efforts to dictate newspapers’ content, Baldasty notes that the

advertising industry in the 1890s pushed the press to generate a product

“compatible” with their publicity needs.30 The Post-Dispatch increased its

display advertising rates by 20 percent annually during the 1880s, but by

1900, a manager remarked to Pulitzer that raising rates was difficult.31 This

was likely due to advertisers’ resistance to constantly increasing rates and

efforts by state-based and national newspaper trade organizations to

standardize ad prices.32

Baldasty describes the commercialization of news in the mid- to late-

1800s as a period where the industry’s concept of news content shifted to

viewing the text within its columns as a product, or commodity, that, in the

minds of owners and editors, could, and should, be manufactured with

                                                                                                               28  Baldasty,  1992,  p.  54,  p.  72  29  Baldasty,  1992,  p.  72  30  Baldasty,  1992,  p.  78  31  Rammelkamp,  1967,  p.  203.  See  footnote  159.  Rammelkamp  cites  memo  from  Post-­‐Dispatch  business  manager  William  C.  Steigers  to  Joseph  Pulitzer,  March  17,  1900;  Pulitzer  Papers  (CU).    32  Like  many  other  state-­‐based  newspaper  trade  associations,  the  Missouri  Press  Association  pushed  for  the  standardization  of  advertising  rates  in  the  late  1880s  (Baldasty,  1992,  p.  104).  See  Baldasty  for  more  on  the  trade  associations’’  efforts  to  create  uniform  rates.    

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maximum profits in mind.33 During this same period, journalists and the

public started to think of journalism as a legitimate profession and, to an

extent, as a watchdog for the public’s welfare.34

Journalism historian Michael Schudson postulates that many

contemporary works in American journalism history, including Gerald

Baldasty’s “Commercialization of News,” reflect an anti-commercial bias,

portraying events in terms of conflicts between editorial and business

pressures, or a “profits are doom” mentality.35 “But,” Schudson asks, “is the

profit motive always corrupting?”36 Citing Baldasty’s research, Schudson

notes coverage of political news was more abundant in the commercial press

1890’s compared to the partisan press in 1831.37 This paper intends to reflect

Daly’s 2009 theory that changes in editorial ideology and professionalism in

journalism emerged as a result of greater commercial developments.

Additionally, the work intends to respond to Schudson’s call for historians to

examine the positive impacts of commercialization.

The case covered in this thesis represents a transitional point between two

periods of journalism history, as outlined by historian Chris Daly: The

“commercialization of news,” covering the span of 1833 to 1900, and the

“professionalization of news,” beginning at the turn of the century and

                                                                                                               33  Baldasty,  1992,  p.  4  34  Baldasty,  1992,  p.  159,  footnote  4.    35  Schudson,  1997,  p.  466.    36  Ibid.  37  Schudson,  1997,  p.  466  

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culminating with the Watergate exposures.38 Professionalization of news, the

development of journalism’s identity as an occupation bearing its own

standards, procedures and culture, emerged near the turn of the century, Daly

notes, as the industry’s dominant philosophy shifted from writing “anything

that sells papers” to “non-partisan factuality.”39 Additionally, the structure of

news organization’s ownership experienced changes, he writes, from a

mixture of private corporations, family trusts, and partnerships to an industry

predominantly controlled by private corporations.40

Libel suits also presented a financial concern to urban newspapers of

the late 1890s and early 1900s. Timothy Gleason’s research on libel litigation

between 1884 and 1899 found that the average number of suits brought

against newspapers nationwide rose significantly as the turn of the century

neared Between 1884 and 1891, there was an average of forty three libel suits

per year against all of newspapers around the country, rising to an average of

about one hundred and thirty seven suits per year between 1892 and 1899.41

The bulk of the plaintiffs were men working in government, business and

journalism.42

Lincoln Steffens’ pioneering muckraking articles on St. Louis have

drawn the attention of scholars since they were published. Though Steffens

may deserve credit for bringing national attention to St. Louis’ municipal

                                                                                                               38  Daly,  2009,  part  1,  pp.  151-­‐152  39  Daly,  2009,  part  1,  pp.  154-­‐155    40  ibid.    41  Gleason,  1993,  p.  895.  These  are  mean  averages  calculated  from  Gleason’s  data.    42  Ibid.  

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issues at the turn of the century, the eminent muckraker and other writers

documenting St. Louis’ issues did not always depict conditions accurately,

typically casting circuit attorney Joseph W. Folk as a virtuous “lone wolf”

character – a “pure” middle-class rural reformer -- fighting the immoral forces

of big city grafters. Contemporary scholarship acknowledges the contributions

of the local press, particularly the Post-Dispatch, in the exposure and

prosecution of officials and prominent local figures for bribery and other

crimes, the codification of favorable public opinion for Folk’s reforms, and

material (financial) support of the circuit attorney’s investigations.43

As circuit attorney Joseph W. Folk struck at St. Louis’ decades old

culture of corruption in municipal government, the Pulitzer paper’s coverage

and editorial condemnation of legislation passed allowing the consolidation of

the city’s streetcar systems was the beginning of a greater campaign to

advance reform efforts. After the heyday of prosecutions for corruption, the

Post-Dispatch took a role in furthering an image of dominance of the city by

some of its upper class. These actions largely stemmed from the paper’s need

to compete with rival dailies, yet there was also genuine fervor for reform

among local journalists.

Historical work on municipal politics from 1850 to 1940 often frame

the period’s conflicts as the result of tensions between upper middle class

reformers, desiring moral rule and centralized government, versus political

machines, representing the rising power of immigrants and reaping rewards

                                                                                                               43  Rammelkamp,  1978,  p.  204;  Primm,  1981,  p.  390  

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for partisan power.44 During the latter half of the 20th century, historians

began questioning the popularly circulated narrative of all-powerful municipal

political “bosses,” arguing that the Progressive era media and reformers

exaggerated the image of all-powerful municipal political “bosses” common

in the media and in academia around 1900.

The initial “all-powerful media” period of communications research

from 1900 to the 1930s encompassed a view of press based on observations of

World War I propaganda, the development of mass audiences and the rise of

commercial media. Communications researchers, influenced by propaganda,

the development of mass audiences through film and radio, and the rise of

advertising, made conclusions based largely on empirical evidence that the

media was an immense power to be reckoned with, fearing abuses in the

formation of public opinion.45

During the same period, the “Progressive concept,” an approach of

framing history through the lens of class struggle, became a major theme of

early journalism history, according to scholar David Sloan.46 A product of the

political and social conditions of the times in which it emerged, it centered on

the concept of “a struggle in which editors, reporters, and some publishers

were pitted on the side of freedom, liberty, civil reform, democracy, and

equality against the powerful malign forces of wealth, class, and

                                                                                                               44  See  Teaford,  1982,  pp.  133-­‐149  45  McQuail,  2005,  p.  458.    46  Sloan,  1990,  p.  64  

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conservatism.”47 Sloan points to “Progressive concept” scholars’ tendency to

frame events during this period as good versus evil, or a black and white

struggle, as the major bias and flaw in the approach.

The image of “Boss” Edward Butler’s omnipotent power, circulated in

St. Louis newspapers and national magazines, was challenged by

contemporary historian Edward Rafferty, who argues Butler never wielded as

much sway in reality as journalists, historians and other observers described.48

While the press is acknowledged as a major contributor to Butler’s sinister

image as the underworld powerhouse of the “Big Cinch,” Rafferty’s text is not

focused on journalism history, thus the context of the newspapers’ editorial

policies and the effects of its portrayal of Butler are unnoticed. Others have

remarked on circuit attorney Folk’s adeptness at using the media to amplify

public sentiment for reform and further his own political career, while

downplaying journalists’ informational and material contributions to his

investigations.49 Historian James Neal Primm writes that the increase in press

coverage of reform issues was also reflection of the “atmosphere” in the

city.50

                                                                                                               47  ibid  48  Rafferty,  1992,  p.  55  49  Geiger,  1962,  p.  447;  Leonard,  1986,  p.  176  50  Primm,  1981,  p.  378.    

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CHAPTER I: ST. LOUIS AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY

St. Louis, Missouri became the nation’s fourth largest city in 1900

when the U.S. Census that year recorded over 575,000 residents. The

Midwestern metropolis was also among the country’s principal manufacturing

centers, though industrial and commercial growth slowed as the turn of the

century approached.51 In less than one hundred years, St. Louis transformed

from a village of transient trappers to a sixty-one square mile patchwork of

ethnic or class defined neighborhoods.

Settled in 1764 by French fur traders, the future city’s site was selected

for its commercially valuable location at the confluence of the Missouri and

Mississippi rivers. Merchants and traders from France, Spain, England and the

American colonies made up the town’s first leaders and its political and social

elite. After Missouri’s transfer to American hands following the Louisiana

Purchase in 1803,

Irish-born printer Joseph Charless published St. Louis’ first newspaper, the

Missouri Gazette, on July 12, 1808. The Missouri territory’s governor,

Meriwether Lewis, attracted the Louisville-based printer by offering a federal

territorial printing contract, a privilege with distinct political undertones.52

The newspaper was originally intended to print notices on the proceedings of

Congress and the Federal government, as well as a voice of American

nationalism in the foothold of a vast new territory.

                                                                                                               51  Primm,  1981,  p.  435  52  Daly,  2009,  part  1,  p.  3.    

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The French founders of the city and their American commercial allies

formed a municipal Board of Trustees shortly after the city’s incorporation in

1809, which gave its members significant power in local affairs.53 Antagonism

against this group arose as Americans newcomers to the city found it difficult

to immerse in the city’s business and political culture, leading to a conflict

between the business and political figures of “new” and “old” St. Louis.54

Early newspapers in St. Louis not only reflected the tension between “new”

and “old” St. Louisans, but also directly took part in it by furthering the image

that the “old” leading families of St. Louis were organized in a conspiracy to

dominate control of the city.

Although the bulk of its contents consisted of national and foreign

news, Charless published his personal opinions on a number of issues,

offending members of the Board of Trustees and other older families. The

editor went further by nicknaming the city’s “old” families the “St. Louis

Clique” or the “Little Junto.”55 Responding to the Gazette’s attacks, members

of the older families created the Western Journal in 1815, later renamed the

St. Louis Enquirer, to serve as a voice against Charless and other “new” St.

Louis figures. The number of newspapers in the frontier town grew over the

next few decades, most backed by political parties, candidates, or social

organizations. By the mid 1850s there were twenty one English language

newspapers published daily, weekly or monthly available to the city’s more

                                                                                                               53  Primm,  1981,  p.  99.  54  Davis,  1979,  p.  343;  Primm,  1981,  pp.  113-­‐117  55  Davis,  1979,  p.  353;  Primm,  1891,  p.  115.    

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than 70,000 residents.56 Their combined circulations were estimated at 72,000

for weekly editions; 19,000 for daily copies; and 6,400 for tri-weekly issues,

according to historian and journalist Walter Barlow Stevens.57 The high

weekly edition circulation indicates St. Louis’ newspapers were not “local,”

but regional at this point, serving a wide readership in the state and territories

to the west.

At the same time, thousands of immigrants from Germany, Ireland,

Italy and other European countries made their homes in St. Louis,

transforming the conflict of “new” versus “old” St. Louis into tensions

between “native” Americans and foreign newcomers. Strains between the

groups increased as immigrants, usually from working class roots, began to

gain power in local political and business spheres.58 An Irishman, George

McGuire was elected mayor in 1842, the first foreign-born man, and first

Democrat, to occupy that position.

Some elites in St. Louis, viewing immigrant communities as a threat to

their hegemony, and organized a “Native American” political party to combat

the rising power of German and Irish residents.59 Violence between “natives”

and immigrants was common in the late 1840s and 1850s. As in earlier social

conflicts, newspapers echoed the atmosphere of the times. The Republican

was the mouthpiece of the “natives,” opposing immigrant candidates and

                                                                                                               56  Stevens,  1911,  p.  167  57  Stevens,  1911,  p.  167  58  Primm,  1981,  pp.  172-­‐176  59  Primm,  1981,  p.  171  

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antagonizing class and ethnic differences, while papers in foreign languages

were established to represent immigrant communities.60

In the decade preceding the Civil War, St. Louis became the nation’s

eighth largest city when its population reached over 160,000 in 1860.

Following the conflict’s end, St. Louis’ papers grew in size and influence

along with the city itself. Technological advances like the telegraph

revolutionized the newspaper and financial industries. In 1866, efforts to lay a

telegraph cable between America and Europe were completed, and the

exchange of international news and trade information increased rapidly.

Newspapers, as the chief recipients of data from foreign stock markets,

developed as a tremendously important tool for the nation’s business

community.

Like most other newspapers throughout the country, the city’s press

began shifting away from political sources of funding and overt partisan

attacks in the 1870s and 1880s, embracing advertising and circulation based

business models. The formation of the Editors and Publishers Association of

Missouri (later the Missouri Press Association) in 1867 suggests a nascent

sense of professionalism and commercialism existed among the city and

state’s newspaper owners and editors.

A LEGEND IS BORN

Although the name that made the group infamous, “The Big Cinch,”

was not coined until the early twentieth century, its alleged members rose to

                                                                                                               60  Primm,  1981,  p.  160,  pp.  175-­‐176.  

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prominence around the Civil War. Opportunism and corruption flourished,

writes historian Julian Rammelkamp, in an “era of untrammeled

individualism” that permitted the city’s elite to take advantage of the city’s

rapid post-war growth by forming monopolies on street railways and other

utilities.61

Totaling about twenty members, the “Big Cinch” was thought to

encompass the leaders of the city’s financial institutions, industry, and other

prominent businesses (including newspapers) that more or less dominated the

commerce, municipal offices, policymaking, and social affairs of the city.62

An article in published in The Iconoclast around 1898, “Behind The Scenes In

St. Louis,” was likely the first widely circulated description of this group. Its

pseudonymous author portrays the men, including street railway magnates

James Campbell and Julius S. Walsh, politician and businessman David R.

Francis, ward boss Edward Butler, and other well-known St. Louisans, as

“local nobility” who possessed everything “worth owning,” bought local

politicians “like cattle,” and could “crush anyone” who acted against them.63

Historian Alexander Scot McConachie, the first contemporary scholar

to investigate the validity of the “Big Cinch” image, concludes that although

some concentration of commercial power, through common interest in local

companies and banks, was held by a small group of leading figures, the image

was largely a parable furthered by the Post-Dispatch and other writers at the                                                                                                                

61  Rammelkamp,  1967,  p.  27  62  For  a  comprehensive  look  at  the  financial  realities  behind  the  “Big  Cinch”  legend,  see  Alexander  Scot  McConachie’s  1976  dissertation.  The  work  does  not  contribute  substantially  to  knowledge  on  connections  between  this  group  and  St.  Louis  journalism.    63  Brann,  1919,  pp.  205-­‐206.  

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time.64 The reason, he asserts, was that Pulitzer wanted revenge for his

abandonment as a nominee for Congress in 1880 by ward boss Edward Butler

and some of the city’s leading members.65 McConachie’s research was also

first in affirming the implication of the “Big Cinch” legend that most of the

city’s newspapers, excluding the Post-Dispatch, were owned by or financially

influenced in some way by these figures. In his opinion, however, this group

did not completely control these newspapers.66

The Post and Dispatch, later the Post-Dispatch, was founded in 1878

by Pulitzer and a partner as a Democratic “organ of thought and truth.”67 The

Hungarian newspaperman originally intended the paper to advance his own

political ambitions and views. Shortly after taking ownership of the paper,

Pulitzer set his mind on running for Congress. Though relatively well-known

in St. Louis politics and society, in order to secure the party’s nomination,

Pulitzer had to secure the confidence and support of “The Dark Lantern,” an

elite group of local politicians. Irish ward boss Edward Butler was the group’s

strong-arm grunt, ensuring elections went their way through voter intimidation

and deploying vote repeaters, or “Indians,” to polling places. Pulitzer

allegedly paid off the “Dark Lantern” to gain their favor.68

                                                                                                               64  See  McConachie,  1976,  Chapter  II.  65  McConachie,  1978,  pp.  144-­‐145  66  McConachie,  1976,  p.  153  67  "Other  3  -­‐  No  Title."  St.  Louis  Post  and  Dispatch  24  Dec.  1878:  2.  68  Rammelkamp,  1967,  p.  151;  Morris,  2010,  p.  184.  These  authors  seem  to  differ  on  their  opinion  of  whether  Pulitzer  actually  paid  a  fee  or  not.  Rammelkamp  presents  significant  evidence  indicating  that  a  payoff  was  made,  but  the  historian  points  out  that  it  is  impossible  to  actually  know.  Morris,  whose  own  research  provides  further  period  evidence  affirming  the  Pulitzer  payoff,  argues  that  there  would  be  no  reason  for  him  not  

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Edward Butler came to St. Louis in the 1850s and established several

blacksmithing shops in the city. From the end of the Civil War into 1900,

Butler expanded his political sway from influencing votes in working class

wards with brute force in early years to existing as a well known, almost

status quo Democratic party figure, although his allegiances shifted if paid

enough. Butler was the man everyone in St. Louis, from the mayor to

murderers, called to get things done. His help came with a “fee,” either

monetary or in the form of favors.

Just before the primary, Pulitzer’s opponent for the nomination,

William Hyde, editor of the Missouri Republican, used his financial resources

to coerce Butler and the “Dark Lantern” into abandoning its backing of his

rival publisher’s ticket. Rammelkamp and McConachie assert that Pulitzer’s

betrayal in his 1880 run for Congress resulted in a shift in the Post-Dispatch’s

editorial policy to a new form of journalistic “independence.”69 Casting aside

the idea of using the paper for political influence, the Post-Dispatch

transformed itself into a persistent watchdog against corruption and crimes by

local officials and the city’s powerful public service corporations, and the

representative of the St. Louis’ small business and middle class

communities.70

Thus began the Pulitzer paper’s pointed exposures of wealthy tax-

dodgers, the activities of the “Dark Lantern,” and corruption, vice and crime

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           to  have  made  a  payoff,  as  it  was  a  common  local  practice  at  the  time.  See  footnote  184  p.  502.      69  Rammelkamp,  1967,  pp.  151-­‐156;  McConachie,  1976,  p.  144  70  Rammelkamp,  1967,  ibid.    

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from the tenement houses and gambling dens of the St. Louis’ working class

to the stately homes and high rise offices of the city’s elite. At the same time,

the publisher worked to increase circulation in the city and focus content on

reflecting the growing metropolis’ needs and interests.71 Though its brashness

certainly raised eyebrows in the community, the new methods worked.

Circulation grew and the paper increased its advertising rates by about 20

percent each year during the 1880s.72

While his paper enjoyed success and popularity in St. Louis,

personally, Pulitzer did not. The editor was contemplating a move to New

York, where his brother was working as a newspaperman, when the 1883

killing of Alonzo Slayback, a prominent local attorney, in the Post-Dispatch

newsroom by his managing editor likely sped up his decision. Angered by

cards slipped into the paper that defamed his friend, a common form of

political attack at the time, the attorney stormed into the newsroom

confronting the editor, who later claimed he shot Slayback in self-defense.

The attorney was a popular figure; the community was outraged. Pulitzer left

St. Louis with his managing editor to take over the New York World.

His departure left the paper with a tenuous legacy. The World became

his primary focus and, though the paper retained the hallmarks of Pulitzer’s

editorial policies, it was largely left to its own devices as long as it remained

profitable. The term of Charles H. Jones as editor and partial owner of the

Post-Dispatch marked a period when the paper swerved from its

                                                                                                               71  Rammelkamp,  1967,  p.  163  72  Rammelkamp,  1967,  p.  203  

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“independent” agenda, functioning as a organ for Jones’ political ideology of

“Free Silver”73 and candidates he supported.

THE LOCAL PRESS AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY

There were five major English-language daily newspapers in St. Louis

at the beginning of the twentieth century: The Globe-Democrat, an

established, nationally renowned Republican paper; the Republic, a

Democratic daily descending from the first paper published west of the

Mississippi; another Democratic broadsheet, the Star, owned by a former

congressman; and the “yellow”74 adolescents, the Post-Dispatch and the

Chronicle, of the Scripps-McRae chain. All sold their daily papers for a

penny.

Many considered the Globe-Democrat, a Republican paper despite its

mismatched name, the city’s leading daily. A prominent advertising executive

at the time described it as “first in St. Louis journalism,” and one of America’s

                                                                                                               73  The  “Free  Silver”  movement  was  a  national  effort  by  Democrat  William  Jennings  Bryan  to  form  the  basis  of  the  nation’s  monetary  system  to  a  silver  standard.  Pulitzer,  a  “gold  bug”  Democrat,  was  opposed  to  this,  wanting  to  create  a  gold  standard  to  give  the  country’s  currency  value.    Morris,  2010,  p.  293.  74  Numerous  observers  during  the  period  of  study  (For  example,  see:  Bates,  1897;  Wilcox,  1900;  Current  Advertising,  1902)  refer  to  Pulitzer’s  dailies,  the  World  and  Post-­Dispatch,  and  the  papers  of  Scripps-­‐McRae,  including  the  Chronicle,  as  “yellow”  newspapers,  owing  to  their  sensational  stories  and  headlines,  mass  appeal,  and  large  amount  of  classified  and  medical  ads.  The  Post-­Dispatch  was  indeed  sensational  at  times  by  anyone’s  standard.  Yet  the  term  isn’t  wholly  accurate,  as  the  newspapers  were  not  merely  pandering  to  public  curiosities  for  their  own  perverse  delight,  but  applying  some  new  business  and  content  concepts  that  became  industry  standards  in  the  twentieth  century.  Therefore  this  thesis  uses  quotation  marks  around  the  term  “yellow”  to  challenge  the  validity  of  the  term’s  inherent  negativity.  Similarly,  quotation  marks  are  used  around  the  term  “independent”  in  regard  to  the  Post-­Dispatch’s  editorial  policy,  because  the  newspaper’s  use  of  the  term  regarding  itself  was  largely  a  marketing  ploy  that  aimed  to  stake  out  new  ground  in  a  highly  politicized  newspaper  market.  Pulitzer’s  paper  was  more  independent  than  most  newspapers  in  the  city,  but  was  not  truly  free  of  partisanship.    

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four “greatest newspapers” for the “thinking classes.”75 The paper had very

high circulation throughout Missouri and other states; its priority was not on

local news.

The merger of St. Louis dailies the Globe and the Democrat was the

product of the whiskey ring scandals of the 1870s. William McKee, the

Globe’s main owner, helped organize a scheme to reelect President Grant by

launching a national network of illegal distilleries, whose non-taxed profits

were used to bolster campaign coffers and the organizers’ own wealth.

Dismayed with their actions, another part owner bought the shares of McKee

and another partner, Douglas Houser. Using funds from the whiskey ring,

McKee and Houser founded the Globe as a pro-Grant organ and, in the mid

1870’s, purchased the Democrat, merging the dailies into the Globe-

Democrat.76

Apparently holding a grudge, their former partner eventually brought

the whole operation down by providing crucial information to Treasury

Department officers who raided numerous distilleries and arrested the ring’s

organizers. The Globe-Democrat, in an odd twist of fate, took the lead among

the nation’s press in exposing the scandal. McKee went to prison, but was

later pardoned. In the wake of the scandal the paper recreated itself into a

respectable conservative Republican paper that enjoyed regional influence and

national notoriety.

                                                                                                               75  Bates,  1897,  pp.  227-­‐228  76  Primm,  1981,  p.  319.    

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The Republic was the descendent of the first newspaper published west

of the Mississippi, the Missouri Republican, founded in 1808. Its name

changed in 1888 to reflect the paper’s development into an organ for the

Democratic Party. Toward the twentieth century the paper developed a

reputation as the mouthpiece for the local business elite, later known as the

“Big Cinch.” Former governor of Missouri David R. Francis, the paper’s

majority stockholder after 1893, was often named as a leader of the “Cinch.”

McConachie calls Francis the “most notable example” of the

connection of St. Louis’ financial elite to its newspapers, revealing Francis

occupied an immensely powerful position in St. Louis’ commercial life. The

politician owned a significant amount of shares in three prominent local

financial institutions.77 With his brother, he shared ownership of a grain

brokerage, Francis Brothers & Company. Charles W. Knapp, the Republic’s

publisher, owned shares in a local bank and was involved in a variety of civic

organizations and causes, including the organizing committee for the 1904

World’s Fair.78

Regardless of its management’s overt connections and favorable bias

to the city’s commercial and political elite, the Republic held some regard

within the newspaper industry. Knapp, its publisher, was president of the

American Newspaper Publisher’s Association for two years in the late 1890s,

and was involved in the leadership at the Associated Press and the Western

Associated Press.

                                                                                                               77  McConachie,  1976,  p.  365;  p.  376;  p.  382.    78  McConachie,  1976,  p.  68  

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At the same time Democratic politician David R. Francis purchased a

controlling interest in the Republic, former Republican congressman Nathan

Frank bought the majority of stock in the Star, established in 1884 as an

evening paper. Hiring a business manager from the World, M.J. Lowenstein,

Frank focused the paper’s efforts on bolstering circulation in the city and

providing news that appealed to conservative Republican St. Louisans.79

The Chronicle, part of E.W. Scripps and Milton McRae’s burgeoning

newspaper chain, appeared on the city’s streets in 1880 as the city’s first

penny paper. As the cheapest paper in St. Louis, the Chronicle, a morning

paper, rapidly increased its circulation, eventually forcing competitors to

lower its rates to one cent. Scripps’ imported brand of journalism, aiming to

appeal to the city’s working elements, did not catch on. Its circulation never

rivaled that of the Post-Dispatch, Globe-Democrat or Republic.

Advertising revenue in American daily and weekly newspapers grew

from $39 million in 1880 to $71 million in 1890, an 82 percent gain, observed

the American Statistical Association around 1900.80 Most advertising in daily

newspapers came from local sources. Retailers, financial institutions, real

estate firms, theatres, and other forms of entertainment purchased the bulk of

daily newspapers’ advertising space: with department stories representing the

largest local revenue source.81 But one of the most significant trends observed

at the turn of the century was the tremendous growth of national advertisers in

                                                                                                               79  Bates,  1897,  p.  245  80  Sherman,  1900,  p.  2  81  Sherman,  1900,  p.  1;  p.  42  

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dailies, from food products like baking powder, and railroad companies, to

patent medicines.82

Charles Austin Bates, a prominent New York advertising executive,

describes the advertisers of St. Louis in an 1897 book as “progressive and

enterprising,”83 The city’s largest advertisers at the time, according to Bates,

were six department stores – Scruggs, Vandervoort & Barney, Nugent’s,

Grand Leader, Barr’s, Crawford’s and the Famous. Although Bates mentions

that these companies did business with all five of the city’s leading papers, the

Post-Dispatch’s relationship with these advertisers was not defined. The

Globe-Democrat commanded the highest price from these clients followed by

the Republic, Bates reports, while the Chronicle and Star sold its space to the

department stores for lower, but rising, rates.84

The only challenge to the Globe-Democrat’s dominant financial

position among local newspapers, Bates notes, was from the Post-Dispatch in

classified advertising.85 Later, readers are told, “I don’t see how a general

advertiser of an average article could come into St. Louis and get the best

results without using the Globe-Democrat, Republic, Star, and for most things

add the Chronicle.”86 Although Bates declares the Post-Dispatch was it was

bringing in “a lower but increasing rate, the omission of the paper in

discussions of the quality of the city’s newspapers as advertising mediums in

                                                                                                               82  Sherman,  1900,  p.  1.  83  Bates,  1897,  p.  225  84  Bates,  1897,  p.  227  85  ibid  86  Bates,  1897,  p.  226    

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this nationally distributed book is striking. The explanation is likely that the

paper was in the midst of an organizational and financial upheaval when

Bates’ text was written.

Pulitzer was in the midst of a legal fracas to wrest controlling stock

interest and editorial jurisdiction of the paper from Charles H. Jones, a

newspaper owner and political mouthpiece for the “Free Sliver” movement.

Leaving St. Louis in 1883 to turn around the New York World, Pulitzer

continually toyed with the idea of selling his the Post-Dispatch. Newspaper

publisher and politician Charles H. Jones purchased a sizable interest in the

Post-Dispatch in 1895, agreeing to Pulitzer’s terms that the contract could be

annulled if profits stopped increasing.

Jones was already a notable, if somewhat unpopular, figure in St.

Louis journalism. The publisher bought shares of the Missouri Republican in

May 1888, soon changing its name to the St. Louis Republic. He served as its

editor for five years until his former political ally and friend, politician David

R. Francis,87 bought a controlling interest in the paper in 1893 to silence Jones

after a conflict between their wives caused the editor to publish slights against

Francis.88 A contemporary assessment of Jones surmises his removal from the

Republic was the result of his “agrarian-reform editorial policies,” a

combination of populist Pulitzer-style crusades, Jones’ personal political slant

                                                                                                               87  Francis,  a  Democrat,  was  elected  governor  of  Missouri  with  the  Republic’s  support  prior  to  Jones’  ownership.  He  later  became  U.S.  Secretary  of  the  Interior  and  U.S.  ambassador  to  Russia.    88  Chapin,  1920,  pp.  167-­‐168.    

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and the stinging editorial bite of the partisan press, raising the ire of the

paper’s other conservative Democrat owners.89

Advocacy of “Free Silver” was one of the main sources of Pulitzer’s

contention with him, but repugnance within the community stemmed from

Jones’ bitter partisan attacks against prominent St. Louisans. Charles E.

Chapin, who served as city editor during Jones’ tenure, recollects in his

memoir that he was arraigned by the circuit court on criminal libel charges in

Jones’ stead after the publisher ordered staff to write a caustic article attacking

the president of the St. Louis Board of Education and then left town on

business. A “drunk and ugly” judge, linked somehow to the figure lambasted

by the paper, held a revolver under his bench during the entire proceeding

and, in open court, challenged the city editor to a duel, Chapin writes.90

Concerned for the city editor’s safety, the chief of the St. Louis Police

Department led Chapin back to the Post-Dispatch office and gave the city

editor his revolver, telling him “not to hesitate to use it” if the judge assaulted

him.91

Responding to another Jones-ordered article, David R. Francis

thundered into Jones’ office with his brother demanding a retraction. The

assistant city editor, Kinney Underwood, ran to a room adjacent to Jones’

office, divided by a glass wall, and leveled a revolver at the incensed

                                                                                                               89  Graham,  1979,  p.  788.    90  Chapin,  1920,  p.  166  91  ibid.    

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politician’s head, waiting for him to move.92 Jones and Francis agreed on a

retraction and no violence occurred, according to Chapin, but these incidents

during Jones’ tenure demonstrate the tenuous relationship that developed

between the Post-Dispatch and some of the city’s leading figures.

Assuming his term as editor and part owner of the paper, Jones was

told by departing editor Samuel Williams than an “anti-establishment”

editorial policy could lead to an advertising boycott by the local business

community.93 He ignored this advice and the paper’s editorial zeal under his

authority negatively impacted the paper’s business side. Chapin recalls that

Jones “drove all the advertisers away from the newspaper with his vicious

attacks.”94 St. Louis’ most prominent advertisers boycotted the paper and the

sales in the city slowed.95

In Pulitzer’s view, Jones was bad for business and a determent to his

paper’s original vision of political “independence.” Nobody wanted him

around; Jones was persona non grata. The Hungarian newspaper mogul

turned to the courts to remove the Floridian import from power in prolonged

litigation that eventually was decided by the Missouri state supreme court.

Pulitzer regained control of the paper by mid 1897. The Post-Dispatch

immediately make a clear split from politics and shifted back to its original

editorial policies.

NORTH AND SOUTH

                                                                                                               92  Jones,  1920,  p.  168  93  Graham,  1979,  p.  791  94  Chapin,  1920,  p.  170  95  Graham,  1979,  p.  791  

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Alongside St. Louis’ transformation into one of America’s largest

population and manufacturing centers was the development of its public

transportation system. Starting shortly before the Civil War as a system of

horse-drawn busses, or omnibuses, by the turn of the century there were

several hundred miles of electric streetcar tracks operated by more than a half

dozen companies across the city, ferrying hundreds of thousands of the city’s

masses to and from work every day. Besides rending an essential service to

the city, many of the city’s elite made their fortunes from investment, and

later the sale, of these systems.

As the logistics of operating and maintaining the city’s various lines

became increasingly complex — from the upkeep of power lines, rails, cars

and other equipment to negotiating labor disputes and municipal legislation

allowing development and expansion — there were moves to consolidate St.

Louis’ street car systems starting in the late 1890s. The business community

and sympathetic politicians portrayed the idea as a boon to the city’s working

class as the fusing of the competing lines would remove costly transfers and

ensure consistent service across the city. The Post-Dispatch eyed attempts at

street railroad consolidation with great suspicion, claiming “trusts” were

trumping the people’s interests in municipal politics by street railroad

franchises pushing favorable legislation through the channels of local

government.

The North and South bill, introduced into the Municipal Assembly in

1897, represented the first significant attempt to gain legal permission to begin

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consolidation of the city’s streetcar lines. It was also the Post-Dispatch’s

opening skirmish against the street railroad interests. Reporting on the bills

passage by the City Council in July 1897, the Post-Dispatch indicted the body

for bribery but failed to denounce specific officials or provide factual

evidence that crimes were committed.96 The city was “caught napping,” it

said, as the city’s representatives “gave away” dozens of miles of streets. As

Mayor Henry Ziegenhein and state legislators attempted to quash the bill

through the end of the year into early 1898, the paper continued to rail against

the “franchise grabbers.”

The paper also kept up allegations of bribery in the deal, its claims

backed, to some degree, by interviews with officials opposed to the legislation

and the grand jury testimony of a councilman who said he was offered $3,000

to vote on the bill.97 By the end of February the bill was vetoed by Mayor

Ziegenhein, ending the matter. But a new, similar bill was being drafted that

would again draw the paper’s attention to allegations of bribery. Only this

time, the Post-Dispatch would cover the proceedings differently and the

charges stuck.

                                                                                                               96  “Big  Grab  For  A  Franchise”  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch.  22  Jul.  1897:1.    97  For  example,  see  “North  And  South  Bill  Rushed  Through  The  Council”  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch.  12  Feb.  1898:8.    

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CHAPTER II: HISTORY OF THE POST-DISPATCH’S “CENTRAL

TRACTION” SCANDAL COVERAGE, 1898-1904

Oliver Kirby Bovard, a reporter for the St. Louis Star, walked into the

newsroom of the Post-Dispatch at 513 Olive Street in early April 1898 with

two objectives in mind: One, to sell an article alleging bribery in the passage

of the “Central Traction” bill that his own paper rejected; The other, to secure

a position on the Pulitzer paper.98

Introduced to the Municipal Assembly that March by Kansas City

banker Robert M. Snyder, the Central Traction bill gave a corporation the

ability to purchase and consolidate the city’s various streetcar companies, then

operating independently in various parts of the city, into a single monopoly

under a 50-year franchise. No other street railway company was allowed such

lengthy franchises, the ability to absorb competitors, or given authorization to

cover so much of the city’s land. Its lineage traced back to the failed “North

and South” bill of 1897. As the bill went through the upper and lower houses

of Municipal Assembly, the Post-Dispatch did not claim outright that bribery

was involved, but chided the public officials for permitting such

unprecedented privileges.99

The reporter, just shy of twenty-six years old, had the facts of the

bribery – names, amounts, the narrative and roles played – but would not

                                                                                                               98  See  Johns,  1937,  p.  146;  Dilliard,  1948,  p.  12;  Markham,  1954;  pp.  1-­‐2;  99  For  example,  see:  "City  Hall  Deadlock."  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch  19  Mar.  1898:  4.  

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name his sources, or indicate how he obtained the information.100 “What

makes you think the Post-Dispatch would be interested in this story?” city

editor Claude H. Wetmore asked Bovard. “It’s obviously not true or your own

newspaper would have accepted it.”101 Bovard told Wetmore the Star did not

want the article “for political reasons,” as its owner, Nathan Frank, was active

locally in the Republican Party, then the majority in city government, and the

article could potentially hurt his interests.102

The facts gathered by Bovard were unconfirmed, but apparently

convincing enough for Wetmore to agree to not only publish the article, but

also hold it for a week while Bovard gave notice to the Star.103 But

competition was fierce among the city’s papers and, despite his agreement, the

Post-Dispatch city editor ended up publishing some of Bovard’s information

several days later.104 The young reporter’s first article in the Post-Dispatch

appeared on page six on April 13.105 Perhaps due to cautious editing by

                                                                                                               100  The  identities  of  these  sources,  according  to  this  author’s  research,  are  undocumented.  This  seems  natural,  given  journalists’  traditional  fealty  to  the  protection  of  sources  providing  sensitive  information.  101  Markham,,  1954,  p.  1.  The  dialogue,  according  to  Markham’s  citation,  comes  from  an  undated  manuscript  by  O.K.  Bovard  titled  “The  Exposure  by  the  St.  Louis  Post-­‐Dispatch  of  the  Central  Traction  Boodle  Scandal  in  April,  1898”  in  the  Post-­‐Dispatch  Reference  Library.    The  author  of  this  paper  attempted  to  obtain  a  copy  of  this  document  in  late  2010,  but  the  current  staff  at  the  Reference  Library  was  unable  to  locate  it,  informing  the  author  that  many  older  internal  documents  were  “purged”  in  the  1970s  and  1980s.  However,  this  story  seems  to  be  confirmed  in  the  duel  autobiography  of  Orrick  Johns  and  George  S.  Johns,  editor  in  charge  of  the  Post-­‐Dispatch  from  1898  to  [YEAR],  p.  146.    102  Markham,  1954,  ibid.    103  Markham,  1954,  p.  2  104  ibid.  Bovard’s  biographer  speculates  Wetmore  printed  some  of  Bovard’s  information  before  the  week  passed  out  of  anxiety  that  the  Star  or  another  competitor  would  print  it  first.  105  Markham,  1954,  p.  6  

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Wetmore, the words “bribery,” “graft” or their colloquial synonym ‘boodle,’

were not used. Its contents were startling nonetheless.

This first article decried the passage of the bill over the mayor’s veto,

framing the legislation as a giveaway of public property and listing those who

voted in favor of the measure in an “Ignoble Roster.” A small item on the

editorial page, titled “MARK THEM,” also identified the names of members

of the City Council and House of Delegates that voted for the Central Traction

“franchise steal,” instructing the public to “mark these men as public servants

who betrayed their trust.”106 Stories over the next few days levied charges

against officials, but the texts were short on specific evidence.

Although Mayor Henry Ziegenhein promptly vetoed the bill, the

Municipal Assembly was able to override the mayoral rejection and move the

bill through using powers granted in the city’s charter. After the countermand,

the Post-Dispatch delivered its first real servo on April 18. Bovard made page

one, leading:

“The Post-Dispatch herewith presents facts concerning the manner in

which the Central Traction bill was passed over the Mayor’s veto. The

facts are such as to warrant immediate investigation by the grand

jury.”107

The reporter’s detailed, chronological narrative follows the movements

of an unidentified “boodle middleman” distributing $75,000 in bribes, listing

the names of each official and the amount they received as they were paid off.                                                                                                                

106  "Article  3  -­‐-­‐  No  Title."  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch  14  Apr.  1898:  4.  107  “Bribery  In  House  And  Counc  [sic]”  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch.  18  Apr.  1898:  1;  Markham,  1953,  pp.  6-­‐7    

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It is unclear whether the reporter directly observed the payoffs or if he

obtained the information second-hand. The article does not identify the

paper’s source for the information, but implies, at least in the case of the City

Council, the amounts of payoffs were common knowledge. Hangers on in

City Hall discussed the amount of money councilmen were paid “as much as

brokers talk of the rise and fall in wheat, or gas, or tobacco stock,” Bovard

writes.108 Regardless, one would think the Post-Dispatch was going out on a

limb publishing an article with no identified sources in an era when libel cases

were rampant. The young reporter’s tone was confident at least:

“The Post-Dispatch knows who the true promoters are, and when the

facts are revealed St. Louisans will be astonished to ascertain who

really have seized control of this city.”109

Page two carried the denials and reactions of some accused officials. A

short item related that the interior of an alderman’s ice cream parlor was

undergoing renovations, inferring its funding came from his Central Traction

bribe. The president of the Union Depot Railway, John Scullin, known

opponent of the Central Traction bill, praised the paper, calling its coverage “a

great public service.” In another piece, Delegate Henry L. Weeke greeted a

reporter in his butcher shop saying, “I suppose the Post-Dispatch want to

increase its circulation.” Claiming no knowledge of payoffs, Weeke said, “If

any of the boys got anything, they may have earned it.”110

                                                                                                               108  Ibid  109  ibid  110  “Mr.  Weeke’s  Philosophy”  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch.  18  Apr.  1898:  2.    

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On the editorial page, the paper urged the mayor and law enforcement

authorities to investigate the matter, reassuring officials and the public that the

“Post-Dispatch can supply the names of witnesses who have full knowledge

of the corrupt transaction.”111 The crusade was on. After the issue was

published, the paper’s managing editor, George S. Johns, suspected his life

was in danger.112

After days of stories alleging wrongdoing and editorial prods to take

action, Judge William Zachritz responded to the Post-Dispatch’s coverage by

ordering the grand jury to investigate the paper’s charges. The jury was given

a proviso: If the allegations proved false, the court would be required to

charge the Post-Dispatch with criminal libel.113 “What construction can be

placed upon these instructions except that they are a warning to the newspaper

press of St. Louis that it must keep its hands off municipal corruptionists?”

rumbled the Post-Dispatch in an editorial two days after the order.114

This charge seems to have rung more or less true. Numerous officials

and other witnesses were interviewed over several days, but no indictments

were made when the grand jury reported its findings on May 18. On the other

hand, no charges of libel were filed against the Post-Dispatch. While the

paper refused the assistant circuit attorney’s request to reveal its sources, the

jury told Judge Zachritz they were “morally certain” of some officials’ guilt

                                                                                                               111  “Punish  the  Boodlers”  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch.  18  Apr.  1898:  4.    112  Johns,  1937,  p.  146  113  “City  Hall  Boodlers  Will  Be  Investigated  By  The  Grand  Jury”  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch.  25  Apr.  1898:  3;  “Judge  Zachritz’s  Charge”  St.  Louis  Republic.  26  Apr.  1898:  9.  Genealogy  Bank.  6  Apr.  2011.    114  “A  Regular  10  O’Clock  Edition”  St.  Louis  Post-­‐Dispatch.  27  Apr.  1898:4.    

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and knew “witness after witness” lied, according to the Post-Dispatch’s story

on page two that day.115 The Republic’s coverage of the report was tucked

away on page 14, its only references to the bribery investigation contained in a

sub headline and one sentence in the third paragraph that flatly said that no

members of the Municipal Assembly were indicted.116

The grand jury’s failure to disprove the Pulitzer paper’s reporting was

a victory of sorts. The Post-Dispatch was not indicted for criminal libel and, to

the author’s knowledge, no figure named in the articles filed action for libel.

Still, the paper’s allegations were not necessarily proven either. In the months

following most stories on municipal corruption would be relegated to the

hinter-pages for some time as a war with Spain started, taking precedence as

the biggest news of the year.

Meanwhile at the state capitol in Jefferson City, lawmakers opposed to

the consolidation of the city’s street railway lines attempted to nullify the

Central Traction franchise claiming the measure conflicted with the Julian

Law, state legislation that prohibited the merging of utility companies vital to

the public’s welfare, like public transportation and electricity firms. A Post-

Dispatch news article called the move as “the only hope of escape in St. Louis

from the clutches of the Central Traction octopus.”117 The state Supreme

Court declared the Julian Law unconstitutional in November, opening the

gates for the formation of street railroad monopolies in Missouri. As the year

                                                                                                               115  “Work  Of  The  Grand  Jury”  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch.  18  May.  1898:  2.    116  “The  Grand  Jury  Makes  Its  Report”  St.  Louis  Republic.  18  May,  1898:  14.  117  “First  Battle  For  The  People”  St.  Louis  Post-­‐Dispatch.  8  May.  1898:  30.    

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drew to a close, financiers behind the Central Traction franchise purchased

two streetcar lines and two other firms merged, taking the number of transit

operating in the city and suburbs from six to four.

AFTER THE BOODLE RUSH

From 1899 to the turn of the century the Post-Dispatch cautiously

approached the allegations of corruption in street railway legislation and other

local government affairs. There was no shortage of news articles and editorial

page rants asserting wrongdoing, but the paper’s charges were taciturn in

comparison with its rigorous, comprehensive reporting of the Central Traction

bill’s original passage and its fallout.

As the Central Traction bill moved through the channels of of local

and state government, indications of corruption often emerged, yet references

to bribery in news articles were glossed over or consigned to lower

paragraphs. Coverage lacked substantive facts, credible sources, and perhaps

most curiously, neglected investigative reporting. Given the inclination to dig

deep was firmly ingrained in Pulitzer’s two papers, it is possible that

significant financial pressures were exerted against the Post-Dispatch —

potential circulation loss, threats of libel action or friction with advertising

clients — limiting their willingness to pursue stories of corruption in earnest

during this period.

In the paper’s battle for supremacy of the local newspaper market, the

Pulitzer paper was not shy of singing its own praises. In an editorial on

Christmas Day, 1898 readers were told the Post-Dispatch was “the best local

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paper published in St. Louis and read by everybody who wants reliable home

news,” before mentions of the paper’s exclusive afternoon Associated Press

dispatches, affiliation with the New York World, and its correspondents

throughout Missouri and surrounding states.118 Circulation in the city

represented a major priority.

However much its columns gloated of its prosperity, in reality the

paper’s future remained uncertain. Though the paper was making a comeback

following Jones’ tenure, the Post-Dispatch was not Pulitzer’s priority and the

publisher mulled over offers to sell the property. The Republic’s publisher

Charles Knapp approached Pulitzer’s business managers in early 1899

attempting to purchase the Post-Dispatch. Though Pulitzer was somewhat

weary of departing with the St. Louis daily, Morris’ research suggests Knapp

sought to capitalize on Pulitzer’s well-known financial issues stemming from

the effort to expel Jones and the World’s recent dips in circulation.119 It is

possible that the proposed sale was not just a business venture: Given the

Republic’s notoriety as a the organ of the “Big Cinch,” and the reputation of

its principal owner, David R. Francis, as the corrupt cadre’s leader, the offer

could have merely been an attempt to silence the crusading paper.

Pulitzer’s interest was perked. The Republic’s publisher negotiated for

several days with a World business manager and made a personal visit to

Pulitzer. Discussions were fruitless. A memo sent by the business manager to

Pulitzer a year later alluded that Pulitzer’s failure to understand the financing                                                                                                                

118  “The  Story  Of  The  Post-­‐Dispatch’s  Twenty  Successful  Years”  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch.  25  Dec.  1898:  26    119  Morris,  2010,  p.  346.  

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measures of Knapp’s proposal led to the sale’s flop, Morris’ inquiry notes.120

It is unclear whether the reporters and editors of the Post-Dispatch were aware

of these negotiations, but journalists working for the Pulitzer paper likely had

to maintain a balancing act of pleasing Pulitzer’s editorial whims and business

managers while conforming to local newspaper market norms.

Coverage of legislation related to street railway consolidation

continued. In order to merge the various lines it purchased under Missouri

state law, Brown Bros., financiers of the Central Traction franchise, lobbied in

Jefferson City to pass a bill permitting streetcar concerns across the state to

consolidate.121 After Gov. Lon V. Stephens signed the bill into law in late

July, the United Railways syndicate merged their properties over the summer,

operating under the name the St. Louis Transit Co. from then on. Hence, there

were two competing streetcar companies careening the city’s streets at the

turn of the century.

A FUSE IS LAID

Fear of libel suits or loss of advertisers may have prompted the Post-

Dispatch to temper direct allegations of bribery and corruption in local street

railway legislation, but there was another major factor at play: From May

through August 1900 several thousand streetcar workers staged a strike

against the city’s two franchises, not only crippling the city’s residents and

slowing commerce. This was the story of the year.122

                                                                                                               120  Morris,  2010,  p.  517  121  “A  Brown  Bros.  Bill”  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch.  3  May.  1899:  3.    122  Markham,  1954,  p.  31;    

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The consolidation of the city’s various streetcar companies into two

systems – the St. Louis and Suburban Railway and the United Railways

Company -- also impacted the pay rates and bargaining power of the lines’

workers.123 During the unrest, strikers and sympathizers severed or shellacked

the streetcars’ power lines, tipped over trolleys, dynamited rails, and violently

confronted imported “scab” workers and whoever dared take the

strikebreaking cars. Women who rode the “scab” cars faced the threat of

assault and having their clothes torn off.124 Stones, bricks, and other objects

were regularly thrown at the cars as they made their way down the city’s

streets. It seemed as though violence could ferment at any time across the city.

Tensions between social strata also surfaced as the working class

tended to support the plight of the strikers while the upper classes denounced

the efforts of the unions and strikers as a detriment to the city’s commercial

life.125 That the middle class’ sympathies were split is evidenced by the fact

that the Post-Dispatch, this group’s supposed representative, sided with the

strikers. Class frictions peaked when the state legislature authorized the

formation of an armed 2,500 member “Posse Comitatus” composed of upper

and middle class St. Louisans.

Scholars consider the strikes as an incidental catalyst leading to

exposures of the “Big Cinch” in 1902: Attorney Joseph W. Folk’s assistance

in the successful arbitration of the labor conflict thrust him into the limelight

                                                                                                               123  See  “Rumors  Of  A  Strike”  St.  Louis  Post-­‐Dispatch.  24  Sept.  1899:  10.    124  For  example,  see  “Warrant  For  Mrs.  Thompson”  St.  Louis  Post-­‐Dispatch.  5  Jun.  1900:  1.    125  Piott,  1978,  pp.  6-­‐7  

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as a popular public figure, later a major factor in his election as circuit

attorney.126 It also represented a moment, historian Steven Piott writes, when

average St. Louisans realized that the public’s rights and property were being

infringed upon by the street railroads and other consolidated utility

companies.127

On Election Day in November Joseph W. Folk was elected circuit

attorney along with fellow Democrat Rolla Wells as mayor. Campaigning on

the promise of a reformed “New St. Louis,” Wells, a street railway and steel

magnate and son of a former congressman, was firmly entrenched in the upper

class echelons of St. Louis. Edward Butler’s political machine selected both

men as candidates, helping them secure a majority on Election Day by

sending his “Indians,” or vote repeaters, to polling places.128 Folk was

unproven in politics aside from briefly serving as president of the Jefferson

Club, a local Democratic organization affiliated with Butler’s machine.

Nevertheless, his notoriety from the settlement of the strikes and

recommendations from prominent party members made the attorney seem a

suitable choice.

The Post-Dispatch’s editorial empathy for the strikers had financial

and organizational impacts. Circulation dipped, resulting in the removal of

editor in charge George S. Johns from most news-related duties and the

                                                                                                               126  Circuit  Attorney  was  a  local  period  term  for  District  Attorney.  Piott,  1978,  p.  15;  Primm,  1981,  pp.  380-­‐381.    127  Piott,  1978,  p.  16.    128  Wetmore,  1904,  p.  24  

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resignation of city editor Claude H. Wetmore.129 Harry L. Dunlap, culled from

the Republic, filled the managing editor position and the enterprising former

Star reporter Oliver K. Bovard became city editor.

After Wetmore quit, managers recommended Bovard to fill the city

editor position. Reports to Pulitzer, according to Markham’s research, lauded

Bovard for his view of St. Louis as a “news center” and his skill and ambition

in covering a wide array of local news.130 Traditionally, afternoon and evening

papers rewrote and expanded morning papers’ local stories. As city editor,

Bovard immediately enacted efforts to challenge the morning dailies’

dominance over local coverage by taking the lead on big stories and hitting

territories and issues that competitors ignored or did not have the resources to

cover.131 Despite these undertakings, general manager Florence D. White

wrote Pulitzer in December, according to Markham’s research, remarking that

city editor Bovard and managing editor Dunlap favored straight reporting

instead of proactive, Pulitzer-style crusades.132

Attitudes on newsgathering apparently differed among city editor

Bovard and some of his superiors. Based on the evidence above, it seems that

some of Pulitzer’s managers considered crusades not only as an important part

of the paper’s public service duty but likely also as a necessary element of its

financial success. Bovard and other editors, on the other hand, appeared to see

traditional, Pulitzer-styled crusades as sensational and a waste of the paper’s

                                                                                                               129  Markham,  1954,  p.  33.  130  Markham,  1954,  pp.  34-­‐35.  131  Markham,  1954,  pp.  35-­‐36  132  Markham,  1954,  pp.  36-­‐37  

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resources. They were willing to pursue investigative campaigns when a

massive scandal was obvious, but the editors were apparently weary of

creating news. If journalists followed the natural currents of the news, the

stories that emerged organically would be startling or engaging enough

without having to produce sensations. At any rate, the Bovard method

stuck.133

Historian James Markham speculates that certain editors and managers

expressed criticism of Bovard’s work in an attempt to gain Pulitzer’s favor by

making themselves appear more competent than the city editor.134 Decades

later, noted journalist and editor Irving Dilliard described Bovard, the paper’s

managing editor from 1908 to 1938, as a “one-man school of journalism” that

developed a reputation as “the editor who held himself aloof from the business

office, who took satisfaction in demonstrating that an advertiser enjoyed no

special privileges in the news columns.”135

Journalism and the newspaper industry during this period were still in

a transitional state, moving away from partisan funding and its accompanying

editorial bias, to politically neutral content to draw mass audiences and

provide an optimal advertising medium. An academic survey of American

newspapers published in summer 1900 dubbed St. Louis a “notable centre of

yellow journalism,” epitomized by the Post-Dispatch and Scripps-McRae’s

Chronicle. Maintaining that all five of its leading dailies displayed “yellow”                                                                                                                

133  Bovard,  who  served  as  the  Post-­‐Dispatch’s  managing  editor  from  1908  to  1938,  is  considered  by  many  as  one  of  the  greatest  editors  in  the  history  of  American  newspapers.  134  Ibid,  p.  37.  135  Dilliard,  1948,  p.  30.  

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attributes, scholar Delos F. Wilcox’s research found that the St. Louis papers,

in comparison with other cities’ dailies, contained meager amounts of retail

ads, literature and reprints of articles, editorials and letters to the editor, while

stories on crime and vice, medical ads and illustrations were abundant.136

Given that St. Louis was a major center for production and retail sales

of clothing, shoes, and other consumer goods, this is noteworthy. Retail ads

were primarily local in nature, purchased by businesses situated in a city’s

commercial district or within the paper’s circulation range. If Wilcox’s is

correct, this indicates that the press of St. Louis was not dependent on

advertising revenue from department stores and other local retailers. In all

probability, medical ads were one of the Post-Dispatch’s most stable forms of

revenue, regardless of its editorial stance. Want ads were an important

circulation booster for the Post-Dispatch, as it printed more of these ads than

any other local daily.137 People living in St. Louis, like any other metropolitan

area, needed to find or offer employment, housing, and other goods and

services in this section. The largest and most plentiful “medical

advertisements” in the Post-Dispatch were for nationally distributed patent

medicines, rather than local companies or doctors, whose ads were usually a

two square column inch box tucked among the theatre notices.138 In this

author’s view, Wilcox was not really describing the “yellow” methods of St.

                                                                                                               136  Wilcox,  1900,  p.  72  137  Current  Advertising,  1902:  p.  19  138  Based  on  the  author  of  this  thesis’  observations  of  Post-­‐Dispatch  issues  in  1898,  1900,  1902.    

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Louis papers, as much pointing out their business models in connection with

its editorial content.

After the blood-splattered spring and summer, the owners of the St.

Louis and Suburban Street Railway Company, the smaller of the city’s two

streetcar systems, attempted to get a bill passed through the Municipal

Assembly allowing the system to expand onto extremely valuable

thoroughfares. The legislation, known as the Suburban bill, passed, allowing

the company to build tracks on the city’s western edge to Union Station, then

a major national railroad terminal, and Forest Park, where the World’s Fair

would be held in 1904.

On the surface, this gave the company a competitive edge. But it was

well known that the owners of the St. Louis Transit company intended to

create a street car monopoly and that the Suburban system would be

eventually bought out. With this in mind, the owners of the Suburban

expanded their system in the hope of increasing the line’s value before the

sale.

THE NEW CIRCUIT ATTORNEY’S BACK-PAGE BEACON

Joseph W. Folk took office as circuit attorney just after the New Year.

Edward Butler soon visited Folk attempting dictate who would fill the

assistant attorney positions. The new circuit attorney would not oblige the

ward boss, naming the assistant circuit attorneys himself. This sent a blatant

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sign to Butler and other corrupt officials that Folk intended to take his duty

seriously.139

The newspapers and the circuit attorney remained relatively quiet on

allegations of municipal corruption until January 21, 1902, when a vague

article buried in the St. Louis Star prompted Folk to begin investigations into

bribery in street railway bills that eventually confirmed the Post-Dispatch’s

stories in 1898.

Folk noticed the item while browsing late editions of the city’s newspapers in

his office with Post-Dispatch reporter William C. McCarty, according to

Wetmore’s account.140 Mentioning no names or sources, the article hinted that

there was a dispute between a group of financiers and several members of the

Municipal Assembly over payment for a bribe to pass a street railway bill.141

Folk turned to the journalist, saying “If there be proper foundation for this

story it is well worth space on the front page, and it could carry splaying

headlines at that.”142 Folk’s message was clear: He would soon launch an

investigation, which promised to be a big story. While the Star only printed

vague rumors on a back page, Wetmore implies that Folk knew the Post-

Dispatch would publish information on investigations and condemn

wrongdoers.

The circuit attorney contacted the editor of the Star to learn the

identity of the article’s author. Reporter James M. “Red” Galvin went to

                                                                                                               139  Primm,  1981,  p.  382  140  Wetmore,  1904,  p.  27.  141  Wetmore,  1904,  pp.  27-­‐28;  Johns,  1937,  p.  150;  Primm,  1981,  p.  385.    142  Wetmore,  1904,  p.  27  

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Folk’s office, telling the circuit attorney that the information was accurate, but

he did not know anything beyond the vague facts in the article.143 Reviewing

court documents on the two street railroad companies, Folk found vital clauses

of the Suburban bill were struck down after its passage, rendering it useless

for the company’s purposes.144 Therein was a motive for a conflict between

the bill’s promoters and legislators. Folk believed that this was the bill

referred to in the article, and each member of the Municipal Assembly, as well

as bank and street railroad officials, were subpoenaed on January 23. As the

witnesses appeared before the circuit attorney the next day, each denied

knowledge of “boodle” in the measure.

Facing the prospect of professional humiliation from issuing “false”

allegations against some of the city’s leading citizens, but sure of his hunch,

circuit attorney Folk decided to bluff. Folk called Charles H. Turner, president

of the St. Louis and Suburban system, and Philip Stock, a local businessman,

into his office on January 25, demanding they confess to bribery and testify

before a grand jury within forty-eight hours or face arrest. On January 27, less

than a week after the Star article was published, the two men admitted to the

scheme and agreed to turn state’s evidence. Warrants were soon issued for

numerous public figures and officials. Some of the accused fled the country.

While Folk investigated the Suburban bill, the Post-Dispatch wasted

no time reminding readers of its 1898 coverage of bribery in the Central

Traction bill’s passage. Under the headline of a page one article announcing

                                                                                                               143  Wetmore,  1904,  p.  28  144  Wetmore,  1904,  p.  29.    

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the a warrant for Suburban Railway Company director Ellis Wainwright’s

arrest on bribery charges, the paper printed a statement by Folk affirming its

role in the exposure. “The state will not rest with the Suburban investigation;

we have gone back to the CENTRAL TRACTION BOODLE SCANDAL,

which the POST-DISPATCH MADE PUBLIC four years ago,” states the

circuit attorney, promising to expose these and other crimes to light.145 The

news story’s fourth paragraph reiterates that the scandal was “published

exclusively” by the paper. Two days later a deputy sheriff announced that

Wainwright had fled the country and was thought to be in Egypt.146

THE CARDS FALL

The Star article gave circuit attorney Folk circumstantial, but sufficient

evidence that a crime had been committed in the passage of the Suburban bill,

laying the grounds for a full investigation. It emerged that assemblymen had

slipped “Red” Galvin of the Star details of the dispute to frighten promoters,

who refused to pay officials after the bill was annulled by a higher court, into

distributing their “boodle.” Using information collected by newspapermen

from the Star and the Post-Dispatch, the circuit attorney first gathered proof

of bribery in the Suburban bill then turned his attention to the Central Traction

bill. These queries led to indictments and investigations into other legislation

passed by graft, including ward boss Edward Butler’s city contracts for trash

removal and processing.

                                                                                                               145  “Bribery  Warrant  For  Ellis  Wainwright”  St.  Louis  Post-­‐Dispatch.  29  Jan.  1902:  1    146  “All  Would  To  Egypt  Go”  St.  Louis  Post-­‐Dispatch.  31  Jan.  1902:  2    

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For decades graft was omnipresent and constant in St. Louis’

municipal affairs, yet the city newspapers’ culture of silence and leading

figures’ efforts to preserve the status quo offered few opportunities for honest

prosecutors to secure grounds for indictments against corrupt officials and

promoters of legislation. No one would willingly talk how the city’s business

was actually carried out. The coverage of these two dailies provided the initial

groundwork for Folk’s prosecutions, knowledge that likely would have been

nearly impossible to obtain otherwise.

Most prosecutions related to these two street railway franchise bills

because Folk was able to easily trace the footprints of “boodle” already

outlined in the papers’ articles. On the first of February 1902, the grand jury

indicted Ellis Wainwright, Henry A. Nicolaus, Emil A. Meyensberg, Charles

Kratz, and John K. Murrell for bribery and Julius Lehmann and Henry A.

Faulkner for perjury. Over the next few months, these assemblymen went to

trial and other officials and figures were charged.

The Post-Dispatch eagerly followed the proceedings and offered Folk

support in editorials, if only to prove to the public the truth of its allegations in

1898. Its coverage of the first grand jury report confirming bribery in the

Central Traction measure illustrates this: A sub headline on the front page of

April 4 states, “Report Tomorrow Will Name the Men and the Sums They

Used in the $250,000 Steal Which the Post-Dispatch Exposed Four Years

Ago.”147 The grand jury, the article’s second paragraph read, would “give all

                                                                                                               147  “Grand  Jury  Lays  Bare  Central  Traction  Grab”  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch.  4  Apr.  1902:  1    

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the details and figures showing how the notorious $250,000 Central Traction

grab was executed four years ago, which were exposed at that time by the

Post-Dispatch.”148

The next day, the grand jury’s opening remarks in the indictment of

the bill’s promoter Robert M. Snyder for bribery to Judge O’Neill Ryan the

next day, the jurors acknowledged the role of the press as a catalyst for the

investigations:

“The press of this city have from time to time published startling

stories of slush funds used in procuring legislative enactments for

private enrichment without compensation to the city. Many have

regarded these allegations as sensational merely, but we find the true

conditions of affairs almost too appalling for belief.”149

Outlining the Municipal Assembly’s “far-reaching and systematic

scheme,” the grand jury spared no harsh words for corrupt officials, reporting

that many members of the “organized gangs for plunder” were “utterly

illiterate and lacking in ordinary intelligence.”150

Nearly four years after the Post-Dispatch charged bribery in the

Central Traction legislation, its assertions were finally proven. The paper’s

back patting reminders of its work in 1898 implies that the Post-Dispatch

desired to use the incident to boost its reputation as an impartial, truth telling

representative of the public.

                                                                                                               148  Ibid.    149  “’Almost  Too  Appalling  For  Belief’”  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch,  5  Apr.  1902:  1.    150  Ibid.    

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Meanwhile, the paper’s crusade against the municipal bribery

continued, moving coverage beyond the street railway franchises. An

investigation into ward boss Edward Butler’s alleged “boodle” in securing a

contract for his sanitation company to process the city’s trash became a major

focus of the paper’s crusade. As the case proceeded, Butler’s lawyers filed for

a change of venue on May 19, claiming negative press coverage on Butler was

so pervasive in St. Louis that potential jurors would be biased. Publishers and

editors from the city’s various newspapers, including business manager

William C. Steigers and editor in charge George S. Johns of the Post-Dispatch

were called on June 5 to testify on their papers’ intentions and biases in

covering Butler’s charges.

The Post-Dispatch’s account of the proceedings attempted to cast the

paper in the most positive light among its competitors. While the article

mentions that Stiegers appeared, his testimony is not included. The defense

attorney asked Johns if the paper’s portrayal of Butler was chiefly intended to

mold public opinion. The editor replied the paper’s “primary purpose” was “to

print the facts and give the public the true situation.”151 The defense asked

Johns again if the paper’s purpose was to mold public opinion. Johns replied

yes, saying the paper sought to form opinion “according to what we believe to

be sound public policy.”

Its “sound” public policy was not outlined in the article, but the

testimony by the paper’s editor suggests the Post-Dispatch was not merely

                                                                                                               151  “City  Prejudiced  Against  Butler  Hawes  Declares”  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch.  5  Jun.  1902:  1.  

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trying to use the coverage as a circulation boon, but to also affect real change

in St. Louis. The judge agreed with the defense and the trial was moved to

Columbia, Missouri, home of the state’s university.

“A JOURNALISTIC TRIUMPH”

While the paper dedicated ample resources to covering the court

proceedings, the Post-Dispatch also incurred expenses sending reporters in

search of two fugitives fleeing Folk’s charges in Mexico. The origin of its

involvement in efforts to retrieve officials John Murrell and Charles Kratz

varies from account to account. According to an undated Post-Dispatch

memorandum found by Markham, reporter Carlos S. Hurd states Folk

proposed the idea to reporter William C. McCarty, giving the Pulitzer paper

an exclusive story as a favor for its editorial support of his investigations.152

Another source says that George S. Johns proposed the idea to Folk at a

breakfast meeting shortly after the two officials were located in Mexico.153

Former city editor Claude H. Wetmore, who was not on the paper’s staff at the

time, writes that McCarty uncovered whereabouts of the two fugitives in

Mexico, gave the information to Folk and proposed that the paper send a

reporter to find them in order to secure an exclusive story for his paper.154

Regardless of who proposed the idea, it was mutually beneficial with

the circuit attorney having scant funding to conduct investigations and the

                                                                                                               152  Markham,  1954,  p.  43.  153  Johns,  1938,  p.  151.    Although  the  account  in  Wetmore  (1904,  p.  71)  differs  from  Johns’  account  and  Markham’s  research,  Wetmore  confirms  that  a  meeting  took  place  between  Folk,  Johns,  and  reporter  Frank  O’Neil  on  August  16  to  discuss  the  plan.  As  in  Johns’  account,  O’Neil  left  the  same  night  for  Mexico.    154  Wetmore,  1904,  pp.  69-­‐71.    

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Post-Dispatch looking for a competitive edge in local news. After reporter

Frank O’Neill left for Mexico, Johns met with Folk again, promising that the

Post-Dispatch would hold stories on Murrell’s return from Mexico until the

circuit attorney had secured a confession and issued warrants for corrupt

officials. The editor reminded Folk “when the time comes we want the

news.”155 The circuit attorney agreed and told Johns that he would notify him

when it was safe to publish.

O’Neill found the fugitives, convincing Murrell to return as a witness

for the state. Shortly before articles announcing the fugitive’s return were

printed, St. Louis Star reporter James “Red” Galvin, friend of many reporters

across the city’s dailies, entered Johns’ office. “Holy Joe is double crossing

you,” Galvin said, relaying to Johns that Folk, at that moment, was giving the

Post-Dispatch’s story to the Star’s managing editor.156

The afternoon of September 8, the Post-Dispatch’s front page blared

“POST-DISPATCH BRINGS MURRELL BACK.” The next day the paper’s

front page urged readers to contribute to a “Boodle Prosecution Fund” that the

paper started with an initial $500 donation.157 Contributions were accepted at

the Four Courts or the Post-Dispatch’s office.

The Post-Dispatch moved its offices from 513 Olive Street to 210

North Broadway in September. Shortly after moving into its new quarters, the

daily touted its prosperity in an article titled “Brief History Of A Phenomenal

                                                                                                               155  Johns,  1937,  p.  154.  156  Johns,  1937,  p.  155.  157  “Boodle  Prosecution  Funds”  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch.  9  Sept.  1902:  1.    

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Journalistic Triumph,” telling readers the Post-Dispatch’s success stemmed

from its “conspicuous public service.”158 Linking the Post-Dispatch’s “first

achievement,” the exposure of tax evaders in the 1870s, to its “crowning

achievement,” the return of Murrell, the writer uses these two points to

illustrate the paper’s “career of unparalleled newspaper success.”159

THE MAN FROM THE EAST

Lincoln Steffens, an editor at the nationally circulated McClure’s

Magazine, arrived in St. Louis in 1902 on a tip that Joseph W. Folk’s hunt of

boodlers might make a good story. Steffens writes in his autobiography that,

as an editor, his intention was not to write the article himself. Folk proposed

Claude H. Wetmore, a Post-Dispatch city editor from 1898 to 1900, as a

candidate.160 The editor hired the local journalist and returned to New York.

Receiving Wetmore’s article in New York, Steffens thought that it

missed important facts and offered an overly lenient treatment of the accused

criminals. The editor added what he saw as the missing elements, including a

comparison of ward boss Edward Butler to Boss Tweed of New York, his

“bow” as a “graft philosopher.”161 Made aware of Steffens’ changes, Wetmore

protested, saying that his livelihood would be threatened if the edited article

                                                                                                               158  “Brief  History  Of  A  Phenomenal  Journalistic  Triumph”  St.  Louis  Post-­‐Dispatch.  21  Sept.  1902:  B2.    159  ibid.  160  Steffens,  1931,  p.  372-­‐373.  161  ibid.  

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were published. The two compromised, Steffens writes, by agreeing to a

shared byline and Steffens’ pledge to acknowledge his changes publically.162

Steffens editing injected his own socio-political perspective and flair.

The result was a good versus evil narrative depicting a massive, decades-old

system of bribery in St. Louis in which a complacent public and press enabled

the city’s elite and Irish-American ward boss Edward Butler to plunder the

city’s resources and public money. The only one taking action against

corruption, they claim, was a young Circuit Attorney named Joseph W. Folk.

THE CITY’S PRESS CIRCA 1902

The same month as Steffens and Wetmore’s work in McClure’s, an

article analyzing of St. Louis’ dailies printed in Current Advertising, a trade

magazine owned by Charles Austin Bates, remarking on difficulty among

advertisers outside of St. Louis in discriminating between the papers’

circulation and other merits. Opening the piece, readers were warned that

every city’s “conditions and circumstances” impacted newspapers’ usefulness

as a medium for advertising:

“Largest gross circulation, past prestige, etc., do not necessarily settle

present supremacy. In fact, the paper that makes the most noise is not

always the most profitable medium. There is something to be said for

those that make up the body of the parade.”163

While the city’s three largest papers, the Post-Dispatch, Republic, and

Globe-Democrat offered “detailed, sworn statements” on circulation, the

                                                                                                               162  ibid.    163  Current  Advertising,  1902:  p.  19.    

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author observes that the term held little weight as there was no uniformity in

their presentation of tabulations. Doubt was cast on the figures given by the

papers, asserting the they were likely inflated to some extent because all of the

papers’ local circulation combined, 230,000, implied to the author that each of

St. Louis’ estimated 100,000 households received two newspapers every

day.164

Interviews with local advertisers said they generally preferred to do

business with the Post-Dispatch, Globe-Democrat and Republic. The

explanation of one of the city’s “leading tailors’ for doing business with these

papers perhaps gives insight on their appeal to advertisers: The Globe-

Democrat, he said, was used for its wide distribution across the Midwest and

western states, especially its large circulation in the southwestern states; the

Republic due to its reach in the areas immediately surrounding St. Louis; and

the Post-Dispatch because it had the largest circulation in general and was the

most popular paper in the city.165

The author also looked at the number of column inches purchased by

the city’s three largest department store ads in four dailies during the first half

of 1902, revealing the newspapers were in close competition for the stores’

business. Nathan Frank’s Star led the group, followed by the Post-Dispatch,

Globe-Democrat and then Knapp’s Republic.166 Though department store ads

were likely a significant portion of the Post-Dispatch’s revenue, the author’s

                                                                                                               164  ibid,  p.  20.  165  ibid,  p.  20.    166  Ibid,  p.  20.  The  Star  had  148,781  lines;  Post-­‐Dispatch:  133,160;  Globe-­‐Democrat:  115,978;  Republic,  112,444.    

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data illustrates that paper did not limit its efforts to simply drawing the biggest

display ad clients. It bested competitors in street sales, number of editions,

total quantity of papers printed and classified ads.167

The Pulitzer paper was omnipresent on the city’s streets, the author

observed, with its first editions appearing “reasonably soon after the ink is

dried on the morning papers’ regular editions.”168 It was clear to the author

that the Post-Dispatch, vying for local dominance, presented a valuable

advertising medium. Yet he implies its crusading editorial policy was

somewhat of a financial liability for the paper:

“The Post-Dispatch is certainly the most aggressive of the St. Louis

newspapers and makes more noise than all the rest put together. Its

policy of ‘doing things’ necessarily makes it lead a ‘strenuous life.’ It

is the ‘human interest’ paper of St. Louis, or as some super-critical

people might say, ‘the yellow journal.’”169

It is not made clear how its editorial policy resulted in a “strenuous”

existence, but, given that the author obtained information from native sources,

their implication is palpable — taking the middle, quiet road was the safest bet

for St. Louis newspapers’ perpetuation. The Pulitzer paper’s crusades affected

local advertising patronage in the past, and indigenous opinions on its editorial

stance varied. However much the paper rubbed people the wrong way, it still

had the largest circulation within the city and immediate surrounding area at

                                                                                                               167  Ibid,  p.  20.  168  ibid,  p.  19.  169  ibid,  p.  23.  

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the time. The author closes the article telling advertisers that the next two

years leading up to the 1904 World’s Fair would increase local papers’

circulation and advertising.

A CITY’S “SHAMELESSNESS” REVEALED

On November 14, Butler was found guilty in the attempted bribery of

two city Board of Health officials on November 14 and sentenced to three

years in prison. A higher court overturned the ruling in January 1903, finding

that the officials had no say in the city’s decision to award the contract to

Butler and thus the attempted pay offs could not have been bribes. Despite this

setback, the Post-Dispatch continued to eagerly cover Folk’s prosecutions and

program of reform throughout 1903 and 1904.

Joseph W. Folk’s career was made from the boodle prosecutions. The

circuit attorney Folk indicted a total of 24 men between 1902 and 1904 for

bribery, and/or perjury related to the Central Traction and Suburban bills and

other tainted municipal legislation.170 Folk only lost two cases; the first,

against Charles H. Turner and the other versus Edward Butler. While eight

members of the House of Delegates went to the penitentiary, most of the other

cases were thrown out or overturned on technicalities and errors.

Riding his circuit attorney position into election in November 1904 as

Missouri’s governor, Folk, the state’s youngest chief executive, developed a

reputation for fighting trusts, vice and election fraud.171 For some time, Folk

was considered as a possible candidate for Senate and even as a potential

                                                                                                               170  Primm,  1981,  pp.  390-­‐391.  171  See  Geiger,  1953,  chapter  VII.    

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runner for president. Ascending the wave of reform alongside Folk, the Post-

Dispatch by this time was firmly entrenched as the city’s most read

newspaper.

Behind news and editorials on the investigations and trials, the paper’s

coverage contained underpinnings of an image of local oligarchical rule and

whiffs of class tension. Most of Folk’s indictments were directed against a

group of Municipal Assembly officials that the Post-Dispatch branded the

“boodle combine” who were generally from working class backgrounds and

often first or second-generation immigrants.172 Even Folk’s “big catch,”

Edward Butler, was an Irishman who was more apt to describe himself as a

blacksmith than a politician. Upper class figures that came under the beam of

Folk’s queries often turned state’s evidence, escaped prosecution through the

statute of limitations, or went on extended “vacations” abroad. To some, the

proceedings reeked of classism and hypocrisy.

Lincoln Steffens pointed out these sentiments out in his second article

on the city, “The Shamelessness of St. Louis,” in the spring of 1903, updating

readers on Folk’s trials and highlighting that, despite indictments and

convictions, conditions largely remained the same, as many of the accused

boodlers continued to hold office or at the heads of corporations.

“Shamelessness” stirred the resentment of “reforming” politicians and

some leading citizens who felt Folk and the Mayor had already cleaned the

city up. Mayor Rolla Wells told a Post-Dispatch reporter the public should

                                                                                                               172  For  example,  see  “Punish  The  Boodlers”  St.  Louis  Post-­‐Dispatch.  18  Apr.  1898:  4.  

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hold a mass meeting to protest what he called exaggerations of corruption in

McClure’s and some metropolitan dailies on the east coast. Admitting

corruption was rampant in the city beginning in the 1870s, Wells said recent

prosecutions were evidence of progress. “The campaign of Mr. Folk against

municipal corruption, while advertising the face that corruption existed here,

has also shown that there has been marked improvement in conditions in the

past few years.”173

Vacationing in London in late August 1903, St. Louis Democratic

politician Harry B. Hawes wrote a letter to former governor and Republic

owner David R. Francis (who many considered to be the leader of the “Big

Cinch”) mentioning that he saw reprints of Steffens’ articles abroad. “Where

ever I have gone and Americans have found that I am from St. Louis, the

question of corruption in St. Louis was immediately made the topic of

conversation. The general impression being that St. Louis is the most corrupt

city in the World”.174 The Post-Dispatch received newspaper clippings from

Paris towards the end of 1903 revealing that Ellis Wainwright, wanted for

bribery, had become a close friend of the U.S. ambassador.175

The Pulitzer paper used Steffens’ article as an excuse to remind the

circuit attorney of his duty to pursue the criminals, no matter how high their

credentials. “[Folk] should expose and punish the influential citizens,

capitalists, and managers of great corporations who are involved in

                                                                                                               173  “[Ma]Yor  Declares  [C]Ity  Is  Maligned  [sic]”  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch.  1  Mar.  1903:  12R.    174  Letter  from  Harry  B.  Hawes  to  David  R.  Francis,  Aug.  20,  1903.  David  Rowland  Francis  Papers,  Missouri  Historical  Society,  St.  Louis.  175  “Ellis  Wainwright  Porter’s  Cher  Ami”  St.  Louis  Post-­‐Dispatch.  11  Nov.  1903:  1.  

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corruption,” an editorial demanded after “Shamelessness” was published.176

The circuit attorney should prove, it said, “that there is not one law for the rich

and another for the poor.”177 The paper continued to support Folk, including in

his gubernatorial race in 1904.

THE SPECTER WITHIN THE COLUMNS

Folk’s investigations into corrupt legislation and the paper’s crusade

eventually extended to the top of branches of state government, forcing the

resignation of Gov. John A. Lee. Through coverage of the ambitious

politician’s actions, Missouri became an example of reform. The state was

also internationally branded for its “shameless” betrayal of the public trust. A

thick layer of the city’s culture of graft was washed away by the wave of

reform, but its foundation, the wealthy promoters of corrupt legislation,

remained confidently in place. Most of upper class figures targeted by Folk’s

investigations remained free.

A simple device was needed to explain to the masses why corruption

persisted in municipal affairs despite Folk’s shake up of the city and state.

Tapping into St. Louis’ decades-old legend of control by local “nobility,”

journalists began using the term “The Big Cinch,” to describe the handful of

leading citizens perceived to control the city. It is unclear who created the

name or when exactly it came into popular use. The Post-Dispatch regularly

used the term by the spring of 1905. The representation stuck, perhaps

reaching its zenith in 1911 when a local businessman published an

                                                                                                               176  “Strike  At  The  Top,  Mr.  Folk”  St.  Louis  Post-­‐Dispatch.  7  Mar.  1903:  4.  177  ibid.  

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overdramatic rendering of the Central Traction exposures and Folk’s hearings

entitled “The Big Cinch.”

The Post-Dispatch had a major role in furthering this image in the first

decade of the new century. According to the paper’s standpoint, “Big Cinch”

interests controlled the city for its own selfish purposes, preventing St. Louis

from reaching its full potential as a great American metropolis. For example,

readers were told in 1907 that the “Big Cinch’s” monopolistic control of

public utilities and the city’s main bridge crossing the Mississippi “must be

defeated if St. Louis is to realize her opportunities.”178

The front page of the Sunday Post-Dispatch on March 29, 1908

carried the bold headline “WHAT IS THE BIG CINCH? DOES IT RULE ST.

LOUIS?” Statements of local officials and other notable figures in business,

journalism and politics throughout the paper give their take on the validity of

the legend. Its centerpiece was a lengthy article by local journalist William

Marion Reedy outlining the extent of the group’s power.

The city’s comptroller told readers that “forty, or fifty, or sixty men,

whose interests are to a certain extent identical, do control the city absolutely

— financially, politically and every other way.”179 Observing that every city a

set of men who dictate business and politics, a circuit court judge suggested

that the press and public opinion were a check of these figures’ power. “No

men or set of men, no matter how powerful, can fly in the face of public

opinion for any length of time without losing more in one way than they gain                                                                                                                

178  “Defeat  The  Big  Cinch”  St.  Louis  Post-­‐Dispatch.  11  Mar.  1907:  8.  179  Player,  James  “Fifty  Men  Control  City,  Says  Official”  St.  Louis  Post-­‐Dispatch.  29  Mar.  1908:  1.  

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in another,” the judge writes.180 The editor of the Star-Chronicle181 called the

“Big Cinch” a “very real and very tangible entity.”182

Mayor Rolla Wells and Politician David R. Francis, both accused

“Cinch” members, wrote letters claiming the Post-Dispatch was attempting to

defame the city’s business leaders. Wells refuted his alleged role and decried

the “Big Cinch” as a “bugaboo used by sensational speaker, not to say writers,

to prejudice the ignorant.”183 If a “Big Cinch” of the city’s businessmen did

exist, Wells said, the St. Louis was better off. Francis, the majority

stockholder of the Republic and supposed leader of the “Cinch,” also denied

connections to the conspiracy, asking if the term was “used as a reproach to

men of large business affairs, or is merely the cynical expression of

disgruntled individuals who rail at everything and are satisfied with

nothing.”184

A notable feature of the Pulitzer paper’s attacks on the “Big Cinch”

was its attempt to paint David R. Francis, the principal stakeholder of its

competitor, the Republic, as the “Cinch” leader. While there is some truth to

the allegations, it was also in the Post-Dispatch’s financial interest to make

these charges. The public of St. Louis did not give the Republic much heed,

evidenced by its bankruptcy in 1919.

                                                                                                               180  Reynolds,  Matt  “Public  Opinion  Can  Cure  Cinch’s  Evils”  St.  Louis  Post-­‐Dispatch.  29  Mar.  1908:  1.  181  The  papers  merged  around  1905.    182  Reynolds,  Matt  “Public  Opinion  Can  Cure  Cinch’s  Evils”  St.  Louis  Post-­‐Dispatch.  29  Mar.  1908:  1.  183  Wells,  Rolla  “Is  Just  A  Bugaboo,  Says  Mayor  Wells”  St.  Louis  Post-­‐Dispatch.  29  Mar.  1908:  1.  184  Francis,  David  “A  Slap  At  Public  Spirited  Citizens”  St.  Louis  Post-­‐Dispatch.  29  Mar.  1908:  1.  

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The term became a national buzzword for special interest groups,

appearing in national periodicals and books well into the 1920s. As the legend

lived on, so did the notion that the “Big Cinch” controlled some of the city’s

newspapers. Reflecting the American newspaper industry’s commercialization

and professionalization in the first decades of the twentieth century,

journalists and the community cast a critical eye at the role the “Big Cinch”

played in the city’s press.

As the paper promoted this myth in the wake of the scandal, the Post-

Dispatch had become city’s most popular newspaper. While Pulitzer mulled

over selling his St. Louis property at times, its success after 1904 convinced

the publisher to retain the paper. During a visit to Pulitzer by Post-Dispatch

editor George S. Johns around 1906, the publisher introduced the editor to

business managers and told the group that he was too focused on New York to

pay attention to the St. Louis paper. “The main thing that interests me about it

is the check I receive in dividends,” Pulitzer said, according to the

reminiscences of Johns’ son. “I assure the newspaper is a mint — it makes

plenty of money.”185 From this, one can see that Pulitzer viewed the Post-

Dispatch first and foremost as a commodity.

                                                                                                               185  Johns,  1937,  pp.  161-­‐162  

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CHAPTER III: COMMENTARY ON COMMERCIALIZATION &

COMMODIFICATION

As the Post-Dispatch covered Folk’s investigations and resulting

prosecutions and into the early decades of the twentieth century, journalists

and members of the community commented on the role of news

commercialization and commodification in the scandal and, more broadly, in

the culture and practices of St. Louis’ newspapers.

McConachie and Leonard briefly touch on news commercialization

and commodification in St. Louis newspapers in their research, but, lacking a

focus on journalism history, do not delve deeply. Expanding upon these

historians’ perspectives, this portion of the author’s research focused on

uncovering primary source evidence of commentary by period observers.

SCENE SHAKER

“Behind The Scenes In St. Louis,” published in Texas-based

sensational newspaper The Iconoclast in late 1897 or early 1898, was one of

the first articles comprehensively describing the group later known as the “Big

Cinch.” Its author, using the pseudonym of Iseult Kuyk and a St. Louis

dateline, asserts that the twenty or so members of the corrupt cadre ruled St.

Louis like “nobility,” and they used the press as their “tool” to distort opinion

and create crusades distracting the public from illicit activities.186

McConachie assigns the author’s identity to St. Louis journalist

William Marion Reedy, editor of the internationally popular magazine, The

                                                                                                               186  Brann,  1919,  p.  206  

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Mirror.187 Primm casts doubt on this idea in light that an alleged “Cinch”

member named in the Iconoclast article made a considerable investment by

during the founding of Reedy’s magazine.188 Reedy was later known as a

prominent critic of the “Cinch” and the press for its failure in serving the

public interest. Regardless, the use of a alias and the fact that the article was

published in a widely distributed newspaper (and one based outside of St.

Louis) indicates there was some degree of risk publishing these statements in

the city.

Members of the group were said to hold significant ownership stakes

in most of the city’s newspapers, enabling direct control of content. Even

papers with no financial connections to members of the group fell subject to

its power through advertising boycotts, the article said:

“No paper dare take up these matters and discuss them. If one were to

do so, it would not have five advertisements of the leading retail

dealers in anything in the whole city. Col. Charles H. Jones, when

editor of the Post-Dispatch, once criticized Mr. Sam Kennard for

something, and forthwith Barr, Nugent, Crawford, Scruggs,

Vandervoort and Barney, and the other big dealers withdrew their

patronage in order to prevent his making the sum of money each year

prescribed in his contract with Joseph Pulitzer as the sine qua non to

                                                                                                               187  McConachie,  1976,  141  188  Primm,  1981,  p.  390  

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his retention of his place. They drove him out of journalism finally.

You’ve got to stand in with all this gang, or go to the wall.”189

The image projected is one of a group wielding significant enough

clout to affect a culture of silence among the city’s newspapers. Written just

after Pulitzer regained control of the Post-Dispatch from Jones, the passage

implies the paper, outside of Jones’ editorship, mostly “played ball” with the

group to preserve advertising patronage. Newspapers like the Globe-

Democrat and the Republic reflected St. Louis’ “soporific atmosphere”:

“The crowd just lives as if it were soaked and sodden in the city’s vast

beer output. It is content to let a few men and a few big concerns

monopolize all the business. It scarcely has energy enough to try to

amuse itself. It goes to bed at half past nine, and never thoroughly

wakes up.”190

Newspapers’ ability to rouse public sentiment against abuses of

political and financial power, in the author’s view, was significantly stifled by

the group. Yet no real suggestions for improvement of the press were offered.

The public is cast as sheep and the newspapers as bound to prevailing

conditions and associations. The author does not seem to hold out much home

in Pulitzer’s renewed control of the Post-Dispatch, suggesting the article was

written before the paper’s Central Traction crusade began.

CITY EDITOR, OPPORTUNIST

                                                                                                               189  Brann,  1919,  p.  207.    190  Brann,  1919,  p.  214.  

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Born during the Civil War in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, Claude H.

Wetmore attended Western Reserve University and a university in

Switzerland in his formative years before making his way to St. Louis to work

as a newspaperman.191 Wetmore, well educated for a journalist at the time,

served as city editor of the Post-Dispatch following the ousting of part owner

Charles H. Jones in 1897. He resigned in the summer of 1900.

In the years immediately following his departure from the Post-

Dispatch, Wetmore collaborated with Lincoln Steffens on the famous “Tweed

Days In St. Louis” article, bought The Valley Weekly Magazine from William

Marion Reedy and served as president of the Pan-American Publishing

Company.192 He also became involved in various business ventures like

mineral water production and natural gas exploration. Wetmore’s rise in social

stature and wealth is evidenced by press mentions. The New York Times

described Wetmore in early 1908 as “a well known St. Louis broker and

author of marine stories.”193 He was included in a 1910 list of the city’s

“Distinguished Residents” in the Post-Dispatch, appearing among 230 St.

Louisans, including former mayor Rolla Wells.194

Wetmore’s version of the Central Traction exposure history and

narrative of Folk’s prosecutions, “The Battle Against Bribery,” was initially

published in segments in The Valley Magazine during June and July 1904. A

portion in a July issue appeared with a non-bylined article, “Folk For                                                                                                                

191  Leonard,  1986,  p.  604.  192  “Magazine  In  New  Hands”  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch.  8  Nov.  1903:  A7.  193  “Fears  Magellan  Route”  New  York  Times.  13  Jan.  1908:  2.    194  “’Who’s  Who’  In  St.  Louis?  Just  230  Celebrities”  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch.  10  Jul.  1910:  A3.  

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President; The Reasons Why,” and a story (“Halftome on Strauss”) penned by

Joseph W. Folk himself.195 This lumping of stories could denote the existence

of a close relationship between Wetmore and the circuit attorney.

Wetmore’s publishing company released the series as a book that year.

Near the text’s opening, he relates an anecdote on the financial pressures

facing newspapers in exposing corruption:

“Wonder has been expressed that the newspapers did not expose the

true situation. They could have done so years ago, for facts sufficient

to damn every office holder guilty of bribery were brought by

reporters to the desks of managing editors. Then why was the silence

kept? A reply is the answer given one day by a man high in authority

to an enthusiast who desired to expose the crime. ‘It would not do,’

said he. ‘To start this ball rolling would result in its ultimately falling

on us and we would be crushed. Some of our heaviest advertisers have

been giving bribes. They had to do it or go out of business. If this thing

were once started, men would be dragged out of churches and out of

clubs and led to jail. No, no, we’ll let it alone.’“196

While it is unlikely that this was an actual conversation, Wetmore’s

work as a city editor for various local papers certainly gives his depiction of

the conditions credibility. The journalist in the anecdote clearly wants to

reveal obvious wrongdoing and his editor is sympathetic, but practical. This

                                                                                                               195  “Display  Ad  –  No  Title”  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch.  5  Jul.  1904:  17.  196  Wetmore,  1904,  p.  9.  

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prevailing culture of the local newspapers, he implies, prevented honest

journalists from doing their job.

The tipping point occurred as the Post-Dispatch “rebelled at the

existing order of things” by charging officials with bribery in the passage of

the Central Traction bill in 1898, he writes, because an “unusually large and

unusually palpable steal was effected.”197 Based on Wetmore’s casting of the

Post-Dispatch as the lone “rebel” paper chasing boodlers and his phrasing of

its reason for pursing the crusade, it seems that he felt the paper acted against

the corrupt officials out of genuine concern for the public’s interest. Of

course, given his role as city editor at the beginning of the exposures, this

could have been, in some way, a bit of self-promotion.

Although Folk was lionized amply, the role of newspapers and

exploits of journalists are not overlooked. More than any other writer who

attempted to record the events at the time, Wetmore acknowledges the role of

journalists — not those of the Post-Dispatch — in furthering investigations,

beating prosecutors to the facts, and acting in the public’s interest. Preparing

the work, Wetmore interviewed the major Post-Dispatch journalists involved

in the crusade from 1898 to 1904.

“However much it may be necessary to censure the business offices in

the large dailies of St. Louis,” he writes, “one cannot sing too loudly in praise

of the working reporters, who, though paid small weekly wages, have ever

been in the front, assisting the circuit attorney in his fight against

                                                                                                               197  Wetmore,  1904,  p.  10.  

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corruption.”198 The success of the exposures and prosecutions seems to be

attributed to a growing sense of professionalism and public duty among

reporters, regardless of newspaper affiliation.

Wetmore implies that some of the city’s newspapers began covering

the truth of the city’s problems out of need to compete with the Post-Dispatch.

In an anecdote, Wetmore casts the Chronicle as so desperate for an exclusive

story from Folk that a reporter was tricked into reporting blatantly false

information that ultimately served the circuit attorney’s propaganda purposes

of frightening potential witnesses. A Chronicle editor called Folk complaining

about the fake lead and the circuit attorney consoled him saying the paper

“rendered the state valuable service.” The editor shot back: “Damn the state, I

am working for a newspaper.”199

If this is true, the Chronicle editor’s retort to the double-crossing

circuit attorney contains signs of consciousness that journalism was an

occupation whose duties were to serve the public’s interest and compete with

rival newsgathering organizations. The editor did not care whether the circuit

attorney prevailed or not, his paper needed an exclusive story to maintain a

competitive edge.

The former city editor was an idealist, and, like Steffens, tainted reality

in his writing to further his point. But one cannot discount Wetmore’s

sentiments, undoubtedly stemming from real experiences as an editor around

the city’s newsrooms. In his view, journalists were pitted against an

                                                                                                               198  Wetmore,  1904,  p.  145.  199  Wetmore,  1904,  p.  92.  

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overwhelming precedent of ignoring municipal ills because of financial

concerns, advertising in the newspaper and ultimately their own jobs. The

“rebel” Post-Dispatch offered honest journalists a chance to publish the truth,

and, in fact, committed tremendous resources to do so. The text does not

mention gains or losses of advertising or circulation stemming from the

coverage. In presenting allusions to a shift in how local journalists viewed

their role and ability to tell the truth, Wetmore’s perspective is evidence of the

positive effects of commodification.

THE REFORMING REVEREND

Pastor of the Mount Cabanne Christian Church and other parishes, and

editor of a periodical, The Optimist, Rev. Frank G. Tyrrell was one of several

prominent local clergy members known at the turn of the century for

outspoken criticism the city’s culture of corruption. The Post-Dispatch

referred to Tyrrell as a “reformer” by the mid-1890’s as the reverend rallied

against saloons, gambling halls and other local social vices. As 1900

approached, Tyrrell became a prominent member of the Civic Federation, a

progressive organization, along with Rev. W.W. Boyd and other prominent

citizens intent on reform.200

In a 1904 book titled “Political Thuggery, or Missouri’s Battle With

The Boodlers,” Tyrrell offered his take on the story of Joseph W. Folk’s

prosecutions and delivers a sermon against both the boodlers and Lincoln

Steffens’ “unjust” depiction of the city in “Shamelessness.” Written when

                                                                                                               200  Nord,  1979,  p.  94.  

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Folk was running for governor and the city was hosting thousands of visitors

for the World’s Fair, the book was attempting to set the record straight

according to the reverend’s vision of events. Conditions were far from perfect

but Folk and Mayor Rolla Wells had mostly eradicated corruption in local

government in Tyrrell’s view.

Throughout his narrative the reverend lauds the city’s press as “the

great agent of publicity,” viewing newspapers primarily as a platform to

reflect the messages and ideology of his concept of reform. He records that the

press “gave the first clue” and calls the dailies a “potent factor” in the

resulting legal actions, but gives no specific details on newspapers’ role in

furthering investigations201. For example, the Post-Dispatch’s role in the

return of Murrell and Kratz is neglected.

Tyrrell depicts the prevailing financial conditions in St. Louis’

newspaper industry as more of a hindrance to papers’ ability to jump on the

bandwagon of reform, rather than performing the duty of impartially

informing the public. The grand jury prosecutions allowed the other papers to

support reforms, he asserts:

“Sometimes, in a pessimistic mood, we are inclined to criticize the

daily papers because they do not lead in the exposures of infamous

wrong and the moulding [sic] of public opinion. We forget that a

modern newspaper is an immense commercial enterprise, and that its

                                                                                                               201  See  Tyrrell,  1904,  p.  18  and  chapter  IX.  

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prosperity, not to say it’s survival depends on the ruling conditions in

the commercial world.”202

Aside from falsely claiming that the city’s press did not take a leading

role in the incident, Tyrrell’s statement above presupposes that the public

expected newspapers to play a principal role in the unearthing of corruption.

His tone appears as an attempt to apologize to the public for newspapers’

conduct, casting the press as a force for good tethered by capitalism. Yet there

is one interesting revelation gleaned from the passage: Given these

newspapers were part of a “immense commercial enterprise,” their shift to

coverage and editorial support of the reform movement could not conflict with

their basic survival. Thus, covering this big story was an economic necessity.

Tyrrell’s comments could be interpreted, in a wider context, as

criticism of the shift from the moral/political editorial policies of pre-

commercialized newspapers, when influencing the opinions readers was a

primary objective, to the profit-oriented press, where paramount interest was

in drawing mass readership by maintaining a placid political stance. He

continues in this vein:

Suppose the papers had been first and foremost, as they easily might

have been, in the work which was taken up by Mr. Joseph W. Folk

before the Grand Jury, immediately they would have brought upon

their devoted heads the wrath and vengeance of vested business

interests. Their advertising patronage would have been jeopardized

                                                                                                               202  Tyrrell,  1904,  p.  44.  

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and doubtless much of it lost; for advertising is the quartz mine of the

modern newspaper. No matter what might be the private opinions and

purposes of the editors, the wishes of stockholders and directors must

be consulted; and whether we like it or not, a newspaper must, to some

extent, if not absolutely, be controlled from the counting room.”203

Editorial non-activism and censorship according to the interests of

advertisers and newspaper stakeholders represented, in Tyrrell’s view, a

financial necessity. Tyrrell’s tenor of resignation (ex. “Whether we like it or

not”) suggests that the clergyman did not expect things to change any time

soon. He expresses a desire for a time when “our civilization has arisen

several grades higher, when a great newspaper may be a great leader and

moulder [sic] of public opinion.”204 The press, Tyrrell perceived, could only

reflect public sentiment as long as it the commercialized system endured.

However much he may have condemned the commercial nature of

newspapers, Tyrrell was not short on praise for the city’s press as a whole for

its support of Folk and reforms after 1902. As long as it editorially backed

Folk and the reform movement the press was functioning properly, he felt. But

Tyrrell notes that people seemed to gravitate toward newspapers that aimed to

accurately report news and genuinely serve the public’s interest. In a section

examining the power of the pulpit and press to drive public opinion to reform,

Tyrrell details on this:

                                                                                                               203  Tyrrell,  1904,  pp.  44-­‐45.  204  Ibid.  p.  45.    

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“The press is vastly influential because of its circulation, but the

modern daily paper is a commercial institution pure and simple, and it

carries with it no more weight than would belong to the pulpit should

it be commercialized. There may be exceptions to this rule, but

exceptions only prove the rule. The press is the great agent of

publicity, but it has suffered in public esteem because of ‘fake’ news;

because of the suspicion of self interest which must always attach to

that which is purely or chiefly commercial.”205

Observant readers could easily detect the fake news forced into print

by the “Big Cinch,” Tyrrell writes, and the papers of St. Louis started

diligently reporting the truth in response to public demands.206 The reverend

ultimately viewed the press as devoid of morality, a platform forced by the

public to tell the truth that could be utilized for reformer’s propaganda

purposes.

THE KERRY PATCH KID

Growing up in Kerry Patch, a working class Irish neighborhood near

the Mississippi river, William Marion Reedy worked his way up the echelons

of St. Louis society through years working as a reporter and editor on the

city’s newspapers and eventually founding a literary magazine, The Mirror,

that received international commendation. He was a friend of many notable

business and political power players, but did not hesitate to call out elite

figures for corruption or point out hypocrisy as he saw it.

                                                                                                               205  Tyrrell,  1904,  p.  221.    206  Ibid.    

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Some consider Reedy the author of “Behind The Scenes In St. Louis,”

the Iconoclast article. At any rate, the journalist made his dissatisfaction with

municipal affairs known in an 1899 article, “What’s The Matter With St.

Louis?” published in The Mirror. According to the journalist, newspapers not

only ignored outrages, but overlooked or “slurred over” St. Louis news in

general. Like the Iconoclast article, the blame is placed on the “Big Cinch”:

“The papers here are gagged by the identification of their owners with

the sodden, selfish interests which fear a ‘renaissance’ as something

which may bring new men to the front and burst the cinch which those

interests have had for years upon everything of material value in the

community. There is no outlet for public opinion which might work a

revolution in St. Louis affairs.”207

Reedy’s tenor of dismay is understandable given that the article was

written shortly after the Post-Dispatch factually exposed corruption by public

figures in the Central Traction case, backed by testimonies in court, yet the

grand jury did not make indictments. Like Tyrrell, the journalist clearly sees

the press’ potential to influence and reflect public opinion, but his view of

their usefulness is not limited simply to furthering the cause of the reform

movement. Reedy’s cry for “revolution” was also a plea for honest, public

serving newspapers.

In a March 1908 Post-Dispatch opinion article, Reedy asserts that

certain local newspapers were “of the Big Cinch.” The owners of the

                                                                                                               207  Sandweiss,  2000,  p.  407.    

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unidentified dailies, he writes, were “in business schemes with the men who

control franchises, who preside of the destinies of banks.”208 These conditions,

according to Reedy, rendered journalists powerless to challenge “Big Cinch”

interests. Their self-censoring editorial stance was “natural,” he muses, owing

to owners’ personal financial connections to the group. Economic pressures

were not limited to owners’ financial bonds to the “Big Cinch,” Reedy points

out: “Furthermore, the heads of the big stores that advertise have investments

often, in franchise properties. They don’t want their investments depreciated.

They have only to speak to newspaper owners, referring incidentally to the

business they give their papers and their suggestions are heeded.”209

The journalist did not merely print his views. Two months later at a

meeting of the Missouri Press Association, Reedy read a paper titled “The

Myth Of A Free Press,” to the assembled editors from across the state

presenting “a protest against the tide of commercialization of journalism” and

“a plea for a return to idealism.”210 Reedy describes the idea of a free,

independent press serving the public’s welfare as a “superstition,” because the

foundation and operation of daily newspapers usually requires the backing of

capitalists, who in turn “insist on the conduct of the newspaper in a way to

insure the protection of their own interests.”211

Speaking on the St. Louis boodle exposures, the journalist lamented

the fact that most the city’s newspapers abandoned support for Folk’s                                                                                                                

208  Reedy,  William  Marion.  “Big  Cincher,  Reedy  Says,  Is  One  Who  Gets  Arbitrary  Charges  Rebated.”  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch.  29  Mar.  1908:  1  209  ibid.    210  Reedy,  1908,  p.  436.  211  Ibid,  p.  436.  

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prosecutions when the circuit attorney moved from charging the saloon

owning, working class members of the Municipal Assembly to leading figures

of the city.

“The men who had made their wealth and were drawing dividends out

of the corporations based upon these franchises did not relish the

prospect of exposure, so being advertisers or the business or social

associates of the men who control the greater morning dailies, they

very soon ‘got in their work,’ in a way to produce the editorial

campaign of ‘crawfishing’.”212

Corrupt officials, businesses, and other figures cast negatively in the

press’ light used “crawfishing,” Reedy said, forcing newspapers to publish

disinformation through financial coercion, to direct the public’s attention

toward other supposed causes of civic ills and discredit reformers.

It is noteworthy that he specifically identifies the city’s morning

papers — the Globe-Democrat and Republic. Though Reedy points out that

Pulitzer sometimes reined in his free and independent editorial policy due to

financial connections, the omission of the “independent” afternoon papers, the

Post-Dispatch and Chronicle, and the Star, an Republican evening paper,

implies that the morning papers were overtly partisan and working to preserve

the status quo, while the afternoon and evening papers were not subject to

these financial pressures, theoretically enabling them to lead in investigations

and support of reform and circuit attorney Folk.

                                                                                                               212  ibid,  p.  442.  

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The views broadcast to the editors, likely including representatives of

the papers he criticized, are somewhat ironic given Reedy’s history: The

Mirror, his popular literary magazine, is thought to have been partially

bankrolled by blackmailing St. Louis’ leading figures to withhold publication

of their dirty laundry.213. The journalist was also intimately connected with

many of the men wrapped up in the “boodle” investigations. Working as a

journalist for several St. Louis daily newspapers, as well as running and

editing his own publication in the city, Reedy was intimately aware of the

problems facing local newspapers.

THE MELODRAMATIC MERCHANT

Local merchant Leo A. Landau, secretary and general manager of his

family’s department store, Globe Shoe and Clothing Company and member of

several prominent business-related organizations, became a conspicuous voice

against “Big Cinch” interests near the end of the twentieth century’s first

decade.

Among letters from prominent citizens voicing opinions on the

existence of the “Big Cinch,” published on a Post-Dispatch front page in

March 1908, Landau defines the group as “a combination of about twenty-five

St. Louisans” who led the city’s industrial and financial concerns with the

assistance of about 150 “lieutenants.”214 The group, Landau writes, was in

control of “two or three of our daily newspapers,” using the paper to “favor

any measure that cinches things for their interests” and cast opposition in a                                                                                                                

213  Putzel,  1963,  pp.  49-­‐50.  214  Landau,  Leo.  “Who  Are  In  ‘Cinch’  Shown  By  $5  Dinner”  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch.  29  Mar.  1908:  1.    

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negative light.215 Next to Landau’s letter, circuit court judge George S. Shields

acknowledged the presence of the group, telling the Post-Dispatch, “Publicity

is the cure for such things, wherever they exist. The press is most potent to

check such abuses.”216

The Landaus’ department store, known simply as “The Globe,” was a

prominent and consistent advertiser in the Post-Dispatch during the height of

the paper’s exposures.217 The merchant was also involved in the Advertising

Men’s League of St. Louis, serving as the organization’s treasurer in 1909.218

Because of these connections Landau was presumably well versed in the

relationship of the city’s advertisers with local newspapers. Beyond his

affiliations to advertising and the press, Landau was an involved member of

business related organizations, like the Progressive Downtown Improvement

Association. Formed by some of St. Louis’ largest retailers and manufacturers

to redevelop of areas of the city’s center into a new, updated municipal

market, the association’s members included former Lieutenant Governor

Charles P. Johnson and David May, owner of the Famous Shoe and Clothing

Company (later Famous-Barr department stores). Landau was, in essence, part

of St. Louis’ business elite.

In early 1910, Landau turned the story city’s struggle for reform into a

fictional novel, “The Big Cinch,” casting the “independent” press, in a                                                                                                                

215  Ibid.    216  Ibid.    217  Based  on  this  author’s  examination  of  Post-­‐Dispatch  issues  from  1898,  1900,  1902;  Tuesday,  Thursday,  Sunday  editions;  Jan.  1  through  Feb.  31,  Jun.  1  through  Jul.  31,  Nov.  1  through  Dec.  31.  218  See  “Associated  Advertising  Clubs  Issue  A  Magazine”  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch.  7  Dec.  1909:  11  

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somewhat over-romanticized style, as front-runners in the exposures. It is

telling that the book’s main protagonist is a truth-telling reporter, Jack

McNair, and its dedication is to the “Most Powerful Agency In the World for

Justice and Truth[,] The Independent, Fearless Newspaper[,] Of which there

are very, very, very few.”219 Although names and some details were changed,

the melodramatic story was essentially based on fact.220

Apparently the book irked some St. Louisans. The city’s public library

banned “The Big Cinch” shortly after it was released. The head librarian, A.

E. Bostwick, told the Post-Dispatch he forbad the book because its “general

tone” was “too sensational.”221 Defending his book, Landau said the fictional

narrative portrayed “things as they are.”222

Set in the city of “Louisberg,” Landau casts the owners of St. Louis’

morning newspapers as bedfellows with the “Big Cinch,” a small group of

wealthy businessmen and financiers dictating affairs of the city. These

“special interest” newspapers “The Journal” and “The Leader,” (alluding to

the Globe-Democrat and the Republic) suppressed news conflicting with

“Cinch” interests because of their owners’ business connections and financial

concerns.

Early in the story, a “Big Cinch” member, financier and politician

Edward Wenzel, calls the editor of the Leader asking for the omission of an

                                                                                                               219  Landau,  1910,  dedication  220  “Leo  Landau  Writes  A  Chronicle  Of  St.  Louis  Graft  As  Fiction  Work  With  Reporter  As  The  Hero”  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch.  27  Feb.  1910:  1B  221  “Leo  Landau’s  Lurid  Book  Is  Barred  From  Library”  St.  Louis  Post-­Dispatch.  8  Mar.  1910:1.  222  Ibid.  

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article concerning a lucrative railroad grade crossing bill in the state

legislature. Initially the editor would not bow to pressure, telling Wenzel the

article is “of the greatest importance to the readers of our paper” as it appeared

to be passed by “high-handed” methods.223 Wenzel then pressures the owner

of the Leader, who borrowed large sums from a bank largely controlled by

Wenzel, to talk to the editor. The paper’s owner bribes the editor to withhold

the article. The principal stockholder of the Journal, the other morning daily,

described by Landau as a millionaire and director of a bank with Wenzel,

agreed to censor the story if its morning competitor followed suit.

But the “News-Herald,” an obvious pseudonym for the Post-Dispatch,

was “fearless and independent, politically and every other way. Always

militant,” in unveilings of the “Big Cinch” crimes to protect and promote the

interests of the masses.224 In the text, Landau speculates that the newspaper’s

crusades were enabled by its financial and management structure:

“Perhaps this independent method was due to the fact that the owners

and principal stockholders of the paper were not residents of

Louisberg. All the other Louisberg papers were owned by residents of

Louisberg and naturally these gentlemen associated with men who had

special interests to serve. These friendships, coupled with the fact that

                                                                                                               223  Landau,  1910,  p.  26.  

224  Landau,  1910,  p.  36.  Landau  describes  the  “Press-­‐Herald”  as  an  independent  afternoon  daily.  The  Post-­‐Dispatch  was  the  largest  “independent”  afternoon  daily  [double  check  this,  writing  this  with  the  assumption  that  the  Chronicle  was  an  afternoon  paper…might  not  have  been…in  which  case  it  was  the  ONLY  “independent”  afternoon  daily];  the  only  “independent”  newspaper  in  St.  Louis  with  a  hyphenated  name;  and  its  owners,  by  and  large,  did  not  reside  in  St.  Louis.  

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many of the newspaper owners were themselves interested in the large

public service corporations, railroads, etc., of course had its influence

on the policy of the papers that the gentlemen owned.”225

The paper’s editorial policy of telling the truth and appealing the

interests of the “masses,” increased the News-Herald’s readership, making it

the city’s most profitable newspaper, Landau writes, as well as a influential

platform for molding public opinion in the city and state. After the News-

Herald’s crusades began, many of those identified by articles sued the paper

for libel, but were unsuccessful because they could not deny the truth of the

allegations.

Later in the story, state Governor “Bolt” (Folk) calls Henry Jennings,

major stockholder of the morning daily Journal, to his office in an attempt to

persuade him to adopt an “independent” editorial line. “Show me the

independent, truthful, fearless paper, the friend of the masses, in any city and

I’ll show you the paper with the largest circulation and the heaviest

advertising,” the Governor tells Jennings, declaring that his competitor, the

News-Herald was more profitable and influential because it told the truth.226

While the governor extolls the values of truth telling, the line of argument is

largely based on the prospect of increased profits. Jennings agrees, switching

the Journal to an “independent” editorial line.

                                                                                                               225  Landau,  1910,  p.  36.  226  Ibid.  p.  102.    

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In Landau’s view, the ideal newspaper eschewed censorship stemming

from special interests and financial obligations. “If it were not for the big

independent newspapers, politicians would have a picnic and the people

would always be ‘left at the post’ by both parties in political races,” he writes

near the end of the book, indicating Landau considered “independent”

newspapers as beneficial to the American people and cause of democracy, as

well the economic interests of newspaper owners.227 This idealism was similar

to Wetmore’s in its idolization of journalists as the protectors of public

welfare. As theatrical as the novel is, thoughtful observers should note that

Landau’s real world experiences as a business owner, advertising patron, and

leading member of an organization representing the city’s advertisers must

have come into play in crafting the text.

A DEAR JOHN TO THE REPUBLIC

The Republic was seen by many as the organ of the “Big Cinch” in St.

Louis. As the paper faced bankruptcy in 1919, the paper’s editor, Post-

Dispatch transplant Sam Hellman, wrote a pointed letter to owner David R.

Francis, then U.S. ambassador to Russia. Describing the introduction of the

paper’s “New Era” editorial policy, Hellman tells Francis the Republic’s

connections to special interests caused the its downfall. The editor posits that

the daily could be financially successful if its editorial policy would “hew the

line of real democracy.”228

                                                                                                               227  Ibid,  p.  231.  

228  Letter  from  Sam  Hellman  to  David  R.  Francis,  May  27,  1919.  David  Rowland  Francis  Papers,  Missouri  Historical  Society,  St.  Louis.    

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“We defended big business at every turn, fought labor unions, derided

social reformers and otherwise distinguished ourself [sic] as a class

organ – a paper of the property interests of St. Louis as opposed to the

human interests of the city. And what has The Republic gained by its

championship of the vested interests? Nothing. The rich advertiser

whom we defended at every turn gave his advertising to the Post-

Dispatch – a newspaper that has always fought for the masses or

pretended to. The wealthy class have praised us for our editorial

attitude, cussed out the P-D and then given all their business to the P-

D. The reason is simple. The Post reached the masses and the

advertiser wanted to reach the masses. He did not let his personal

likes or dislikes interfere with his business.”229

The greatest challenge to overcoming the Republic’s years of decline,

Hellman tells Francis, was convincing the public that its shift in editorial

policy was genuine. McConachie, in attempting to refute the “Big Cinch”

legend’s premise that the group controlled the city’s newspapers, uses the

Republic’s bankruptcy as an example of its falsehood.

Citing the Hellman letter, McConachie takes this as an admission that

the group’s financial influence in the city’s press failed. The historian was not

viewing the incident in the context of journalism history and therefore

overlooks the realities of the situation. Ownership of newspapers by “Cinch”

members may have ultimately proven unsuccessful, but advertisers were still

                                                                                                               229  Ibid.  

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able wield pressure against papers. The letter is also a remarkable example of

an editor appealing to the owner of newspaper to transform from catering to

the needs of special interests and partisanship to an honest, modern

newsgathering organization.

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CHAPTER IV: CONCLUSIONS

This thesis aimed to craft the narrative of the Post-Dispatch’s crusade

and promotion of the “Big Cinch” image within the background of business

concerns and conditions facing local newspapers of the period. The evidence

and perspectives of period observers suggest that local newspaper

commercialization and commodification of news served positive and negative

roles in enabling St. Louis’ press to cover corruption and embrace reform.

Analyzing the crusade and its context within St. Louis’ newspaper

history, it is apparent that competitive business concerns were at play in the

Post-Dispatch’s coverage of the scandal and editorial line of promoting

reform and condemning the “Big Cinch.” Financial interests were not the only

factor behind its actions. Some reporters and editors from St. Louis dailies,

regardless of their employers’ affiliations, sought to expose the truth.

Corruption was omnipresent and obvious.

As the scandal and the “Big Cinch” made headlines, St. Louis’ newspapers

were transitioning from partisan press era business and editorial practices to

modern, “independent” (less partisan) models. The case presents a unique

opportunity to examine the theoretical versus real world impacts of

commercialization on news.

Scholars are also offered an opportunity to examine a tangible example

of the effects of news commodification. Post-Dispatch news and editorials

covering the scandal and reform efforts, and promotion of the “Big Cinch”

legend, were crafted to sell papers and influence public opinion. These images

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and ideas were converted into products, sold to and embraced by local mass

audiences. Rival dailies mimicked some of these messages in an attempt to

keep up with the Pulitzer paper’s growing circulation.

THEORY OF COMMERCIALIZATION

St. Louis’ dailies were in the midst of commercialization, or the

process of converting the focus of newsgathering organizations to profit

accumulation, as the scandal unfolded at the turn of the century. As the local

press altered content and production to meet the demands of capitalistic

market forces, they not only had to conform to standards of the newspaper

market of the United States but also that of St. Louis, possessing its own

principles and culture.

The Republic and the Star, whose major stockholders were prominent

political figures, were essentially partisan organs. The Post-Dispatch, then

known as an “independent democrat” newspaper, was still shaking off its

association with the politically-charged editorial policies of Charles H. Jones

and struggling to regain circulation. Perhaps the most commercialized

newspapers in St. Louis at the turn of the century were the Globe-Democrat

and the Chronicle.

Enjoying regional influence230 and national respect, the Globe-

Democrat was the city’s most prosperous newspaper throughout most of the

late 1800s. Its focus was not on local news, but on catering to the interests of

conservative Republican upper and middle class readers throughout the range

                                                                                                               230  Circulation  extended  into  states  surrounding  Missouri  and  other  western  states.      

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of states the paper circulated in. Articulate criticism of state and national

Democratic Party members was abundant; exposures of wrongdoing in St.

Louis were not. This proved profitable for the paper for some time.

The Scripps-McRae newspaper chain sensed a market opportunity for

a daily serving St. Louis’ working class readers in the 1880s, establishing the

Chronicle, the city’s first penny paper. With an independent editorial policy

and focus on drawing city circulation, the paper aimed to provide an optimal

advertising platform for local businesses. Despite applying newspaper

business concepts that were advanced for the time, the Chronicle’s circulation

remained small in comparison to copies sold by the Republic, the Pulitzer

paper, and the Globe-Democrat.

The five dailies varied in partisanship and the geographic focus of

their circulation (local or regional), but it appears the city’s newspapers were

financially dependent on advertising and circulation revenue.231 Advertising

industry figures referenced above, like Charles Austin Bates, did not convey

much confidence in the Post-Dispatch as a display advertising medium,

compared to the Republic and Globe-Democrat, but marveled at its shrewd

tactics in gaining higher and higher circulation. This is probably because the

Pulitzer paper was applying new journalistic and news business techniques

that were at that date unproven in providing positive profit returns.

                                                                                                               231  Based  on  these  newspapers  inclusion  in  prominent  newspaper  directories  and  the  fact  that  most  of  these  newspapers  placed  advertisements  in  these  books  to  attract  advertising  patronage.  These  papers  are  also  mentioned  in  advertising  trade  publications  at  the  time  in  articles  relating  to  advertising  in  St.  Louis.      

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Other press critics, like Delos F. Wilcox, critiqued the Post-Dispatch’s

supposed “yellow” characteristics of sensationalism, penchant for illustrations

and bold headlines, and its high number of patent medicine and classified ads.

But “yellow” techniques sold newspapers. These attributes were in many

ways the foundation of what newspapers’ business and content model in the

twentieth century. A byproduct of commercialization, contemporary scholar

Denis McQuail writes, is that news organizations eventually push readers to

assimilate in the greater culture of consumerism.232

While not measured or documented in any sort of scientific way, the

author of this thesis examined a sample of complete Post-Dispatch issues

from 1898, 1900 and 1902233 with the specific purpose of gaining a sense of

who advertised and what was promoted. Based on this, this thesis’ author

noted that local department store ads were consistently the largest, most

prevalent display advertisements throughout the sample. Most of the city’s

large department stores advertised in the Post-Dispatch in each issue

examined save for Crawford’s, whose ads appeared frequently but with some

interruptions toward the end of the sample. The other large display ads

appearing regularly throughout the issues were for nationally distributed

patent medicines followed by emerging national brands like the National

Biscuit Company (Nabisco) of Chicago.

                                                                                                               232  McQuail,  2005,  p.  550.  233  This  thesis’  author  looked  at  issues  from  1898,  1900,  and  1902.  Tuesday,  Thursday  and  Sunday  issues.  Jan.  1-­‐Feb.  31;  Jun.  1-­‐Jul.  31;  Nov.  1-­‐Dec.  31.This  sample  period  was  selected  because  it  represented  key  points  in  the  paper’s  crusade:  1898  when  it  began,  1900  as  a  middle  point,  and  1902  when  prosecutions  and  convictions  occurred.  This  was  not  conducted  with  any  scientific  precision,  and  was  mostly  for  this  thesis  author’s  background  knowledge.    

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Although the sample was not scientifically precise, the author of this

thesis can definitively state that display advertisements during this period

were chiefly for consumer goods including clothing and shoes, medicine,

alcoholic beverages, and food products. St. Louis was a manufacturing and

retail center. Local newspapers catered to these businesses and offered their

pages as a way to reach the city’s teeming thousands. The dailies and local

businesses advertising in their columns had a vested interest in promoting

consumerism for survival. As the Post-Dispatch exposed wrongdoing and

covered prosecutions the amount of display ads in each issue examined did

not appear to decline and the clients, a mixture of local and national patrons,

seemed to remain consistent. Coverage of the scandal may have driven some

readers away, but circulation could have been strengthened by public interest

in news of the Spanish-American War in 1898 and local, state, and national

elections.

Many of the period observers cited in this thesis thought that the

economic power of the “Big Cinch” represented a threat to the integrity of the

local press. Charles H. Jones’ irksome editorial policies supposedly led to an

advertising boycott of the Post-Dispatch. Former city editor Claude Wetmore

related an anecdote about an editor denying a reporter’s request to investigate

graft because the paper’s advertising might be threatened. In merchant-turned-

novelist Leo Landau’s overdramatic fictional narrative of the scandal, the

movement of reform in the state is portrayed as the result of “independent”

newspapers’ efforts working in tandem with honest officials. In Landau’s

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understanding, honesty and public service made “independent” Post-Dispatch

the most profitable newspaper in the city.

Connections between the “Big Cinch” and the city’s advertisers were

very real. Numerous mentions by journalists and other observers of the

group’s willingness to express its displeasure with newspapers’ editorial

policies through advertising boycotts indicate to the author of this thesis that

this was a genuine pressure that local newspapers, including the Post-

Dispatch faced. Owners of some papers were well-known politicians or

supposedly connected to the “Big Cinch,” presenting conflicts of interest in

covering many scandals. This presents a real world example of the theoretical

negative impacts of commercialization.

However, the Post-Dispatch was able to move forward with its

crusade despite these conditions. In all probability, its popularity

(demonstrated through its continuously growing circulation) and mixed

display advertising patronage of local department stores, who depended on

local newspapers regardless of their editorial slant, and nationally distributed

consumer products prevented its financial downfall, if the level of the “Big

Cinch’s” influence is to be believed. In this light, the Pulitzer paper’s cunning

business and editorial tactics prove to be a positive example of

commercialization.

Therein lies the paradox: Capitalistic orientation in the St. Louis

newspaper market had both positive and negative effects on the dailies’ ability

to expose local corruption. If the Post-Dispatch’s news and editorials struck

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readers the wrong way, circulation would have dropped and the other local

newspapers would have not followed suit in promoting the same messages.

THEORY OF COMMODIFICATION

The effects of commodification on the news, when a message in the

news develops material value, are generally viewed as negative.234 The

purchaser of the message shares it with others in their community,

perpetuating a constructed sense of reality. The message’s spread, in theory,

limits the public’s ability to question and challenge the societal status quo it

reflects.

In this thesis’ view the Post-Dispatch commodified the idea of local

reform, the legend of the “Big Cinch,” and support of the actions and political

career of Joseph W. Folk. Articles on these topics increased circulation,

allowing the Pulitzer paper to beat its rivals in readership and influence.

Advertising revenue likely increased. Around 1902, local newspapers

transformed their editorial treatment of these topics, save for Folk’s political

career, to mirror the Post-Dispatch in an apparent attempt to retain a

competitive edge.235 By this time, the Pulitzer paper was the city’s most

popular. In embracing some of the Post-Dispatch’s commodified views, the

newspapers of St. Louis helped to disseminate the paper’s messages.

In promoting the general cause of local reform and support of some of

Folk’s prosecutions, commodification had positive benefits, as public opinion

                                                                                                               234  McQuail,  2005,  p.  550  235  The  depth  and  nature  of  support,  however,  varied  from  newspaper  to  newspaper.  For  example,  Republican  newspapers  would  not  back  Folk’s  political  career,  but  they  would  support  some  of  his  efforts  to  reform  local  politics.  

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was codified against the long-standing conditions. The propagation of the

“Big Cinch” legend represents a negative effect of commodification. Though

there is substantial truth in the mythology of local oligarchical control, the

Post-Dispatch, and other observers who followed its rendering, cast the

conditions of local affairs simplistically as a David (Folk, newspapers, the

people) versus Goliath (all-powerful oligarchs) battle. The image did not take

into account the economic and political realities of the time, scholars like

McConachie and Rafferty point out.

Channeling decades old class and cultural animosities and brewing

suspicions of monopolistic commercial power, the “Big Cinch” was merely a

convenient, simple device to explain to the masses the connection of the city’s

leading figures with corrupt legislation. But many supposed “Cinch” members

continued to drive the commercial and political affairs of the city well into the

twentieth century, leading thoughtful observers to wonder how fair and

accurate the editorial treatment of this group was. It is possible that some St.

Louisans were one-sidedly condemned — like Mayor Rolla Wells and

politician David R. Francis asserted —as members of the “Big Cinch” because

of financial connections to figures accused of crimes, or they were forced to

engage in corrupt activity as part of standard local business and political

practices of the time.

In the commentary of journalist William Marion Reedy and reformer

Rev. Frank G. Tyrrell a sense is given that journalists and the news industry as

a whole had abandoned their role as moral guides of public opinion. Tyrrell

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saw the press as a ethically bankrupt institution, yet one that could be utilized

for publicity of “good” causes. Far more pessimistic, Reedy saw the notion of

a free press as a falsehood in light of the economic realities of establishing and

running a newspaper.

Both the reverend and the journalist saw local newspapers’ support of

reform as a product of profit motives. Their perspectives essentially ask

“What Price Glory?” Could newspapers not only inform, but inspire the

masses? Most of the observers were united in the notion that newspapers can

affect social change unless affected by negative economic pressures.

CLOSING NOTES

The story of the Post-Dispatch’s scandal coverage and role in

perpetuating the “Big Cinch” image represents a transitional moment at the

crossroads of partisan and commercialized journalism. It is an example of

journalists performing a role that the American public in the twenty first

century innately expects the media to perform: a watchdog over those holding

power for the benefit of the community.

To do this, the Post-Dispatch and other local newspapers had to

overcome a prevailing culture of editorial silence enforced by newspaper

owners and investors or the threat of advertising boycotts. Based on available

evidence and the perspectives of period observers, the Post-Dispatch was

financially successful and influential because of its crusades. The newspapers

that endured the first few decades of the twentieth century changed their

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editorial lines to reflect the Post-Dispatch’s time-honored method of

“independence.”

As the media audiences become increasingly fragmented in the early

twenty first century and lines of who a “journalist” is and what a “publication”

is are distorted, news professionals may find some comfort in the fact that

nineteenth and early twentieth century American newspapers also struggled to

balance commercial interests and their service to democracy as providers of

accurate, impartial information.

Today, journalists are looking for new benefactors to pay its bills. It

could be said that the press of the early twenty first century in the United

States is in the midst of an attempt to start a period of “re-commercialization.”

The mainstream media, and even startups, retain hope that the capitalistic

market will provide journalism’s daily bread. St. Louis’ newspapers were

dealing with special interests and pressures from advertisers at the dawn of the

twentieth century. Over one hundred years later bloggers and tweeters are

monitored by corporations and are subject to a number of pressures or

incentives to portray products in a positive light.

Each shift in journalism’s source of patronage brings about changes in

the press’ business model and journalists’ self-concept. Current developments

are no exception to this trend. The case outlined in this paper represents

journalists’ attempt to “roll with” the changes that commodification presented.

So perhaps there are some grounds for optimism, amid newsroom buyouts, the

erection of pay walls, and the formation of “hyperlocal” conglomerates, that

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journalism will endure through the adaptation to the century’s economic

conditions.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

PRIMARY SOURCES NEWSPAPERS: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1897-1904. ProQuest Historical Newspapers. The St. Louis Republic, 1897-1904. GeneologyBank.com (Newsbank Inc.); Library of Congress Chronicling America Project – Historical Newspapers The New York Times, 1897-1904, ProQuest Historical Newspapers AUTOBIOGRAPHIES: Chapin, Charles E. Charles Chapin’s Story: Written in Sing Sing Prison. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1920. Google Books. Web. 14 Mar 2011. Dreiser, Theodore. Newspaper Days. New York: H. Liveright, 1931. Google Books. Web. 9 Apr. 2010. Johns, Orrick. Time of Our Lives; the Story of My Father and Myself. New York: Octagon, 1973. Print. Steffens, Lincoln. The Autobiography Of Lincoln Steffens. Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 1931. Web. Google Books. Thomas, Augustus. The Print Of My Remembrance. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1922. Google Books. Web. 9 Apr. 2010. Wells, Rolla. Episodes of My Life. St. Louis. W.J. McCarthy. 1933. Print. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS Kenneth G. Bellairs Papers, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis. David Rowland Francis Papers, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis. Julian S. Rammelkamp Papers, Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri – Columbia. HISTORIC ACCOUNTS: Behymer, F.A. “Simon Legree of the City Desk.” Page One [annual publication of the St. Louis chapter of the American Newspaper Guild], 1941.

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p. 11; p. 29. Found in the papers of Rammelkamp, Julian S. Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri – Columbia. Dilliard, Irving. “Mr. Bovard”. Page One [annual publication of the St. Louis chapter of the American Newspaper Guild], 1948: p. 12-13; p. 30. Found in the papers of Rammelkamp, Julian S. Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri – Columbia. Kelsoe, William A. St. Louis Reference Record: A Newspaper Man's Motion-Picture of the City. St. Louis: Van Hoffmann, 1927. University of Missouri Digital Library. Landau, Leo A. The Big Cinch. St. Louis. Franklin Co. 1910. Print. Tyrrell, Frank G. Political Thuggery. St Louis: Puritan, 1904. Print. Wetmore, Claude H. The Battle Against Bribery. St. Louis: Pan-American, 1904. Google Books. Web. 11 Apr. 2010. NEWSPAPER-RELATED BOOKS AND DIRECTORIES: Bates, Charles A. American Journalism From The Practical Side. New York: Holmes Publishing Co., 1897. Web. Google Books. Web. Edward R. Remmington’s Annual Newspaper Directory, 1898. Google Books. Web. Leonard, John W. The Book Of St. Louisans. St. Louis: The St. Louis Republic. 1906. Google Books. Web. Pettingill’s National Newspaper Directory and Gazetteer, 1899. Google Books. Web. Charles A. Fuller’s Advertisers Directory of Leading Newspapers and Magazines, 1901. Google Books. Web. The Dauchy Co.’s Newspaper Catalogue, 1904. Google Books. Web. PERIODICAL ARTICLES: Camp, Eugene M. "Cost of a Newspaper." Current Opinion Aug. (1890): pp. 134-35. Google Books. Current Advertising. Vol. 12. October (1902): pp. 19-24 Google Books. Creelman, James. “Joseph Pulitzer, Master Journalist.” Pearson’s Magazine. March (1909). pp. 229-247. Google Books.

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McAuliffe, Joseph J. "From Blacksmith to Boss." Leslie's Monthly Magazine. May 1904-Oct. 1904: pp. 635-39. Google Books. Reedy, William M. “The Myth Of A Free Press” St. Louis Medical Review. Dec. (1908): pp. 436-444. Google Books. Steffens, Lincoln. “Enemies of the Republic.” McClure’s Magazine. Nov. (1903). Google Books. Web. 13 Steffens, Lincoln. “The Shamelessness of St. Louis.” McClure’s Magazine. Nov. 1902-April 1903. pp. 545-560. Google Books. Wetmore, Claude and Steffens, Lincoln. “Tweed Days in St. Louis.” McClure’s Magazine. May (1902). pp. 577-586. Google Books. ACADEMIC WORK Sherman, Sidney A. “Advertising in the United States” Publications of the American Statistical Association. 7;52 (Dec, 1900), pp. 121-161 Wilcox, Delos F. “The American Newspaper: A Study in Social Psychology.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 16 (Jul. 1900) pp. 56-92. JSTOR. Web. 12 Feb. 2010. GOVERNMENT RECORDS Population of the 100 Largest Urban Places: 1860-1900." U.S. Bureau of the Census, 15 June 1998. Web. 17 Apr. 2010. MISCELLANEOUS Paxton, John A. The St. Louis Directory and Register. St. Louis, 1821. University of Missouri Digital Library. Web. 13 Apr. 2010. <http://digital.library.umsystem.edu/cgi-bin/Ebind2h3/merc1?seq=1>. Brann, William C. The Complete Works Of Brann, The Iconoclast. New York: Brann Publishers, 1919. Web. Google Books. SECONDARY SOURCES CONTEMPORARY HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY: Aucoin, James. The Evolution of American Investigative Journalism. Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri, 2005. Ebrary.com. Web. 3 May 2010.

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Baldasty, Gerald J. The Commercialization of News in the Nineteenth Century. Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin, 1992. Print. Byars, William V. "A Century Of Journalism In Missouri." The Missouri Historical Review XV.1 (1920): 53-73. Google Books. Web. 9 Apr. 2010 Dary, David. Red Blood & Black Ink: the Story of Journalism in the Old West. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1998. Print. Davis, Ronald L.F. "Community and Conflict in Pioneer St. Louis." The Western Historical Quarterly 10.3 (1979): 337-55. JSTOR. Daly, Chris. "The Historiography of Journalism History: Part 1: "An Overview"" American Journalism Winter (2009): 141-47. Communication and Mass Media Complete (EBSCOhost). Daly, Chris. "The Historiography of Journalism History: Part 2: "Toward a New Theory"" American Journalism Winter (2009): 148-155 . Communication and Mass Media Complete (EBSCOhost). Douglas, George H. The Golden Age of the Newspaper. Westport, Ct: Greenwood, 1999. Print. Federal Writers' Project. Missouri A Guide to the "Show Me" State. New York City: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1943. Google Books. Web. Fellow, Anthony R. American Media History. 2nd ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2010. Print. Geiger, Louis G. "Joseph W. Folk v. Edward Butler, St. Louis, 1902." The Journal of Southern History 28.4 (1962): 438-49. JSTOR. Web. Geiger, Louis G. Joseph W. Folk of Missouri. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1953. Print. Gleason, Timothy W. “The Libel Climate Of The Late Nineteenth Century: A Survey Of Libel Litigation 1884-1899.” Journalism Quarterly. 70:4 Winter (1993): 893-906 Graham, Thomas. “Charles H. Jones of the Post-Dispatch: Pulitzer’s Prize Headache”. Journalism Quarterly 56:4 Winter (1979): pp. 788-793, p. 802 [Web service] Web. 13 Feb. 2011. King, Homer W. Pulitzer's Prize Editor: a Biography of John A. Cockerill, 1845-1896. Durham, N.C.: Duke UP, 1965. Print.

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Leonard, Thomas C. The Power of the Press: The Birth of American Political Reporting. Oxford, UK. Oxford UP, 1986. Markham, James W. Bovard of the Post-Dispatch. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1954. Nord, David Paul. “The Urbanization of American Journalism.” Magazine of History. Spring (1992): pp. 20-25. JSTOR. Web. 15 Feb. 2010. Primm, James Neal. Lion of the Valley, St. Louis, Missouri. Boulder, Colo: Pruett Pub., 1981. Print. Putzel, Max. The Man in the Mirror: William Marion Reedy and his Magazine. Cambridge, Mass. Harvard UP. 1963. Print. Rafferty, Edward C. "The Boss Who Never Was." Gateway Heritage Winter (1992): 54-73. Print. Rammelkamp, Julian S. Pulitzer's Post-Dispatch, 1878-1883. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1967. Print. Rammelkamp, Julian S. “St. Louis: Boosters and Boodlers.” Bulletin of the Missouri Historical Society. 36. July (1978). pp. 200-210. Sandweiss, Lee Ann. Seeking St. Louis: Voices From A River City. 1670-2000. St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society, 2000. Print. Schudson, Michael. Discovering the News: a Social History of American Newspapers. New York: Basic, 1978. Print. Sloan, David W. Makers of the Media Mind: Journalism Educators and Their Ideas (excerpt). Hillsdale, N.J.: L. Earlbaum Associates, 1990. Google Books. Stevens, Walter B. St. Louis, The Fourth City, 1764-1911. St. Louis: S.J. Clarke Publishing. 1911. Google Books. Web. Teaford, Jon C. "Finis for Tweed and Steffens: Rewriting the History of Urban Rule." Reviews in American History 10.4 (1982): 133-49. JSTOR. Violette, Eugene M. A History of Missouri. Boston: D.C. Heath &, 1918. Google Books. INTERNAL HISTORICAL WORK

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“The Story Of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch” St. Louis: Pulitzer Publishing. 1957. Print. THESES AND DISSERTATIONS: Hart, Jim A. "A Historical Study of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 1852-1958" Diss. University of Missouri, 1959. Columbia: University of Missouri, 1959. Print. McConachie, Alexander S. "The "Big Cinch": A Business Elite In The Life Of A City, Saint Louis, 1895-1915." Diss. Washington University, 1976. Print. Nord, David Paul. “Newspapers and New Politics: Municipal Reform in Chicago and St. Louis, 1890-1900” Diss. University of Wisconsin – Madison, 1979. Print. Seeger, Jean L. "The Rhetoric of the Muckraking Movement in Saint Louis." Thesis. Washington University, 1955. Print.