IN 1914, AT THE ANNUAL DINNER OF THE AMERICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION, JOHN SWINTON, the editor of a well-known newspaper, was about to retire. In his retirement speech he said: “There is no such thing as an independent press in America, if we except those of the little country towns. You know this, I know it! Not a man among you dares to utter his honest opinion. Were you to utter it, you know that it would never appear in print. . . I am paid to keep my honest opinion out of the newspaper for which I write.
You too are paid for similar services. Were I to permit a single edition on the newspaper for which I write, to contain an honest opinion, my occupation . . . would be gone in less than twenty-four hours. The man who would be foolish enough to write his honest opinion would soon be walking the streets in search of another job. It is the duty of the New York journalist to lie, distort, to destroy, to revile, to toady at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his country, and his race, for his daily bread, or what amounts to the same, for his salary.
We are tools and vessels of the rich (International Bankers and their affiliates such as the C.F.R.) behind the scenes. We are marionettes. These men pull the strings and we dance. Our time, our talents, our lives, our capacities, are all property of these men – we are intellectual prostitutes.”
These words are more true today than when they were spoken over 75 years ago. We do not have a “free press, in America. It is completely “controlled,” and we hear exactly what the “masters,” want us to hear.