and still believe was of vital public importance. A copy of this telegram was put into your hands last night by the "Rocky Mountain News" and was refused by you. I now offer you a second telegram, bearing upon this subject. At the same time I offer for your inspection a copy of the House Journal in order that you may verify the truth of the statements contained in my telegram to President Wilson. I shall first, in a personal interview, politely request you to send this telegram over your wires. If you refuse to do so, I shall—in order to put you upon record—place this letter in your hands and request you to sign the statement below. If you refuse to sign it, I shall understand that you refuse to send out this telegram over your wires, and I shall proceed to send it to the papers myself, and I shall subsequently take steps to make these circumstances known to the public.
Respectfully,
Upton Sinclair.
Mr. Upton Sinclair, City:
Dear Sir:—The undersigned, correspondent of the Associated Press in Denver, agrees to send your telegram to President Wilson over its wires tonight.
Mr. Rowsey read this letter and handed it back to me, with
the smiling remark: "I see you are getting a good story." I
thanked him, and left. I went down-stairs to the telegraph-office
and sent a copy of my telegram to President Wilson to
a selection of newspapers all over the country. They were as
follows: New York "Times," "World," "Herald," "Sun" and
"Call"; Chicago "Examiner" and "Tribune"; Philadelphia
"North American" and "Press"; Baltimore "Sun"; Washington
"Times"; Boston "Herald" and "Journal"; Topeka
"Journal"; Kansas City "Star"; Milwaukee "Journal"; Atlanta
"Georgian"; New Orleans "Times-Democrat"; Omaha
"News"; Pittsburg "Post."
Now, I submit that here is a definite test of the service of the Associated Press. Is it sending out all the material which its papers want? Is it suppressing anything which its papers would be glad to publish if they could get it? Let the reader observe that these newspapers are not merely radical and progressive ones; they include some of the staunchest stand-pat papers in the country, the New York "Times" and "Herald," for example. They are all save two or three of them Associated Press papers. To make the test automatic I sent the telegrams "collect." The editors had the right to read the message, and if they did not want it, to refuse to pay for it, having it sent back to me for collection. Out of the twenty papers, how many took this step? Only five! The other
