TATTERED ENSIGN

The most poignant sign of the degeneracy of the times is shown by the lamentable position of William Randolph Hearst, for whom things have come to such a pass that he must buy a quarter page advertisement in the New York Herald-Tribune (of all places!) to assure a suspicious nation that his intentions have never been anything but strictly honorable. Those who deny this are not only malicious criminals but also un-American and subversive!

An embarrassed country reads how viciously the benevolent Mr. Hearst has been misunderstood, but the sunny note creeps in when the Dean of AMERICAN Journalism reassures us that he stands for everything noble in humanity and that his chain of newspapers exists for the sole purpose of protecting us from the baser side of our natures. It is now definitely certain that Mr. Hearst's enemies have been shameless liars: his advertisement assures us that he is in favor of "American independence, American rights and liberties, free speech, free assembly, freedom of thought and action, and freedom of the press." What a comfort to know that no longer will the Hearst papers attempt to muzzle the Communist agitator who has his own unwavering belief in free speech! No more will proponents of teachers' and students' oaths in our legislatures receive the support of Mr. Hearst's hitherto misdirected journals. Such a policy would be in open violation of the publisher's greatly treasured belief in freedom of thought and action which, his Herald-Tribune advertisement tells us, he values on a level with Americanism itself. If the Hearst papers have their way from now on the country is in for a long era of economic stability. Advocates of paying large veterans' bonuses with printing-press money and supporters of high-powered sales taxes will look elsewhere for aid in the future. Randolph Hearst has sowed his wild oats and is now definitely on the bandwagon of liberalism and laissez-faire democracy.

It is a wise move on Mr. Hearst's part to advertise the truth about himself in the Herald-Tribune, since so many people, not realizing that his underlings have been pulling wool over the eyes of the lily-white publisher, have stopped buying his papers. Hereafter the American people will not be fooled when the Hearst papers scream for vengeance against the crusading Communists. It will all be a typographical error.