"There is no such thing in America as an independent press, unless it is in the small towns. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write his honest opinions, and if you did you know before hand that they would never appear in print. . . .

The business of the New York journalist is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his race and country for his daily bread. You know this and I know it, and what folly is this to be toasting an 'Independent Press.'

We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping-jacks; they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."

— John Swinton managing editor of the New York Sun and a former chief editorial writer of the New York Times. The occasion was "a banquet attended by leaders of New York journalism to honor him .  . ."

Source: Walter Brasch in Forerunners of Revolution (pp. 23-25).
Brasch cites as the source, Labor's Untold Story, by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais (p. 81).

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28 mar 2000
updated - 3 apr 2001