The Truth, Hearst

"Hearst in War, Hearst in Peace, Hearst in Every News Release,

Spreads His Filth and Desolation to Increase His Circulation."

Anti-Hearst Examiner. August 1935. (quoted in Pizzitola, Louis. Hearst Over Hollywood: Power, Passion, and Propaganda in the Movies. NY: Columbia University Press, 2002. 347.)

People, myself included, don't know as much about history as they should. I knew William Randolph Hearst had not been an admirable man, and had seen Citizen Kane of course. However, I don't think I'd ever heard about his anti-academic actions, such as his red-baiting of university professors.

The following resolution had passed unanimously in 1936 by the American Federation of Teachers.

WHEREAS, William Randolph Hearst, through his control of numerous agencies of communication, such as newspapers, magazines, movies, newsreels and radio, has attempted to pollute the mind of the American people through distortion of facts on all vital matters to such a degree that Senator Norris was led to characterize Hearst papers as 'the sewer system of American journalism'; and

WHEREAS, He is an avowed foe of the Child Labor Amendment, and is one of the biggest employers of child labor; and

WHEREAS, He has been a constant enemy of academic freedom and of honesty and courageous teachers, and has been a motivating force in loyalty oath legislation and red riders; and

WHEREAS, He is the bitter enemy of trade union principles, and has throughout his career, both as editor and employer, fought all efforts of workers to better their conditions, and has conducted such vicious campaigns to malign and cripple trade union efforts that he was denounced publicly by the late Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor; and

WHEREAS, He is the chief proponent of fascism in this country, as evidence by his campaigns against free speech, his soft pedaling of the Black Legion crimes, his expressed and open admiration of Hitler and Mussolini and their policies, and his use of all the resources at his command for the dissemination of fascist propaganda; and

WHEREAS, He is the outstanding jingoist of the country and has used his powerful resources in attempts to entangle this country in imperialistic wars; therefore be it

Resolved, That the American Federation of Teachers set up a central Anti-Hearst Committee and recommend to each local to set up anti-Hearst committees, the purpose of which shall be:

(1) To organize a boycott against Hearst newspapers and newsreels and all other agencies of communication under his control;

(2) To cooperate with the American Newspaper Guild in its anti-Hearst activities;

(3) To build up sentiment among its members to repudiate all candidates whose principles and programs are those of Hearst;

(4) To cooperate with all anti-Hearst organizations in the community. (Adopted)

Report of the Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Convention of the American Federation of Teachers. 1936.

The resolution made the news, naturally (perhaps not in Hearst publications, though?):

"Teachers Demand Boycott of Hearst; Federation Resolution Assails Him as 'Jingoist' and Chief 'Proponent of Fascism.'" N.Y. Times. August 22, 1936: 5.

"In the course of the past fifty years I have talked with presidents of the United States, senators, justices of the Supreme Court, members of the House of Representatives, governors, mayors, bankers, editors, college presidents (including that great scholar and thinker, Charles W. Eliot), leading men of science, Nobel Prize winners in science and letters, and I have never found one single person who for talents and character commands the respect of the American people, who has not agreed with me that William Randolph Hearst has pandered to depraved tastes and has been an enemy of everything that is noblest and best in our American tradition.... There is not a cesspool of vice and crime which Hearst has not raked and exploited for money-making purposes.... Unless those who represent American scholarship, science, and the right of a free people to discuss public questions freely stand together against his insidious influences he will assassinate them individually by every method known to yellow journalism."

Historian Charles Austin Beard to members of the National Educational Association February 22, 1935.

Seemingly universities themselves don't remember the history of the man. See, e.g.:

"New Center at Saint Rose Named 'William Randolph Hearst Center for Communications and Interactive Media." September 26, 2011. College of Saint Rose. http://www.strose.edu/about_saint_rose/centerforcommunicationsandinteractivemedia/article4832

Why name it for that man and not someone else in the family?