The Journals of Ayn Rand (38 page)

John K. Winkler,
W. R. Hearst, An American Phenomenon.

The principles of “circulation getters”:

Hearst was very interested in machinery; he always introduced the latest in his newspaper shops, and even did inventing and improving himself.

Camaraderie with his subordinates, fun and excitement in the office, in his early days in San Francisco.

Hearst got the best newspaper talent he could get—and did not spare money to buy it. He paid very high salaries.

Sample of his methods:

Hearst enters civic problems in his paper:

Hearst went after local bosses of the Democratic Party and caused their indictments by a grand jury.

One of his woman reporters pretended to faint on the street, was taken to the city receiving hospital and then wrote an expose of it, which caused reforms.

The baby died, and Hearst applied the money to build a hospital for crippled children. He personally guaranteed the entire sum, while trying to raise it by appeals in his paper.

One of his reporters jumped off a ferry boat in order to see how much time would be taken to rescue him (he was an expert swimmer). This caused reform of ferry apparatus and drills for life-saving.

Hearst’s bitterest early battle was against the Southern Pacific Railroad, which controlled the state. Hearst got hold of letters written by the Railroad’s attorney and published them, creating a sensational scandal.

Hearst bought the New York
Morning Journal
in 1895. He was thirty-two years old. He lost a great deal of money before he made this paper pay, but he spent the money heedlessly. He started a battle with Pulitzer’s
World.
He cut the price of his paper under that of the
World.
He raided his rivals. He took their best men away from them; he doubled the men’s salaries. At one time he lured the entire staff of the
Sunday World:
editors, artists, writers. He signed all the best writers and famous names he could get. “Invariably he would go into the composing-room at midnight to help make up the paper, and his gift for striking display and news arrangement was the marvel of his associates.” His greatest concern was to build circulation at any cost. [...]

Hearst started on what he called the “new journalism.” His slogan was “While others talk the
Journal
acts” and “What is everybody’s business is the
Journal’s
business.” He decided to be the champion of the people not only in words but in action. His paper started bringing legal actions and injunctions against corporations and public abuses, e.g., an injunction preventing the Board of Aldermen from granting a gas-franchise, which the Journal found illegal, and others like that. [...]

“A mobile ‘murder squad’ was formed to solve criminal mysteries independently of the police (by the paper). Liberal rewards were offered.” One murder was actually solved by the
Journal,
when it published reproductions of the oil-cloth in which the body was found, and one of the reporters traced the purchaser of the cloth and exposed the murderer.

Hearst liked features with “women appeal”:

The incident when two editors of Hearst’s escaped to Europe, from overwork, and Hearst sent a reporter after them, found them, took them back and never reproached them for it. “He greeted the deserters politely, without a word of reproof or admonition, just as though he had seen them every day for the past month.”

Hearst helped many people, but always concealed his personal charities.

Hearst started agitating for the Spanish-American War in order to create “live” news. There was a story, unproved, but considered possible: Hearst sent special correspondents to Cuba, one of whom was

When Hearst opened a paper in Chicago, he had to fight a war with other papers. They all hired thugs to interfere with the distribution and selling of one another’s papers. But this did not discourage Hearst and his paper remained. [...]

Hearst obtained and published letters written by the vice-president of Standard Oil. (He bought the letters from minor employees who stole them and let Hearst take photostats of them.) The letters showed corruption of senators and others. They created a great scandal. It was even rumored that the President asked Hearst whether he had any letters referring to him. “Nothing that I intend to publish at this time,” replied Hearst blandly.

Hearst started publishing magazines in 1903. One of his greatest successes was
Good Housekeeping
which appealed to women and to advertisers, with its innovation of tests for the products advertised. [...]

One artist who was invited to work for a Hearst magazine answered: “The only enterprise in which I shall ever voluntarily join William Randolph Hearst will be one of self-destruction.”

Hearst went into motion picture production, but had to give up, losing a great deal of money. (His political career, after terrific ballyhoo, was also a failure. He lost the election for governor of New York and the nomination for president.) [...]

He has a special system to check up on all his publications. He keeps a man to read them and to see that they carry out Hearst’s instructions. If they don‘t, they get a note of warning from Hearst. This gives the impression that he personally reads all of them.

Hearst’s belief about journalism:

Hearst does not allow his papers to have his biography in their “morgue.”

This book lists (1928): Twenty-seven Hearst newspapers, nine magazines in America and three in England, one book publishing corporation, eight film and news services.

 

 

Watch out for Roark being too heroic and always right too easily. (In particular, in scene with building he saves, Chapter V.)

For Roark-Holcombe.
Roark asks him why one must copy the Parthenon. Holcombe answers: “Not the Parthenon. You’re quite right, Saint Peter’s Cathedral.”

Disillusionment—sees through people and everything—and doesn’t like it.

Fierce independence—nothing in such a world will hold her.

Enjoys destruction and deliberate nastiness—her answer to life and the only way to make it interesting.

Has denied herself all desire or enthusiasm—because life can hold her through that and she will not give it such an opportunity.

She has contempt for all ideals—because of the ideals that she has been taught (Christian brotherhood).

When Roark is broke, before going to Connecticut, he does not hide the fact from Dwight at all; he has no inkling of the idea that he should keep up his prestige for the sake of Dwight, who looks up to him.
[Larry Dwight, a minor character that AR cut from the novel, was a draftsman whom Roark met while working for John Eric Snyte.
]

 

 

[The following fragment is from an early draft of Part I. It describes Heddy Adler, a mistress of Roark’s who was later cut from the novel. Heddy is reminiscent of Jinx in the short story Good Copy (see The Early Ayn Rand). She represents a type that AR liked, but never found a place for in her novels.
]

She was utterly incapable of two things: of lying and of denying herself a desire; she did not quite grasp the possibility of either process. It was just as plausible to her to push her way through a crowd [to see] a steam shovel as it would have been [to see] a royal coronation; she would have enjoyed either. She had been spoiled and sheltered, accustomed to seeing her every wish granted; she had emerged from it completely sure of herself, neither arrogant nor offensive, but irresistible in the bright, innocent self-assurance of a person who had been spared all contact with pain. She acted as one would act if this were a dream world and life contained nothing to make lightness feel guilty and men were free to give beauty and significance to the insignificant gestures of their every moment. She was completely real in being unreal. [...]