If this theory
is correct, then a certain conclusion follows. It is that the fair
body of truth would be inviolate in a press not in any way connected
with Big Business. For if it should happen that a press not controlled
by, and not even friendly with, Big Business somehow failed to contain
the fair body of truth, something would be wrong with Mr. Sinclair's
theory.
There is such a press. Strange to say, in proposing a remedy Mr.
Sinclair does not advise his readers to subscribe to the nearest
radical newspaper. Why not? If the troubles of American journalism go
back to the Brass Check of Big Business why does not the remedy lie in
reading the papers that do not in any remote way accept the Brass
Check? Why subsidize a "National News" with a large board of directors
"of all creeds or causes" to print a paper full of facts "regardless
of what is injured, the Steel Trust or the I. W. W., the Standard Oil
Company or the Socialist Party?" If the trouble is Big Business, that
is, the Steel Trust, Standard Oil and the like, why not urge everybody
to read I. W. W. or Socialist papers? Mr. Sinclair does not say why
not. But the reason is simple. He cannot convince anybody, not even
himself, that the anti-capitalist press is the remedy for the
capitalist press. He ignores the anti-capitalist press both in his
theory of the Brass Check and in his constructive proposal.
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