The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 10, 1897, Page 1

the Lipr | to be taken from | .ttty VOLUME L3 FRANCISCO, WEDNESDAY MORN. 18 MARCH 10, PRICE FIVE CENTS, THE MASK TORN FROM A HYPOCRITE A Chapter on Hearst’s Love for Free Labor. THE “EXAMINER” A BIG 4 PURCHASER OF CON- J VICT GOODS. The Paper Is an Exclusive Customer of One Brand of San Quentin Twine. Is Supplied Steadily Under a Contract Made Over Eighteen Months Ago With Warden W. E. Hale. Masquerading as the Champ'on of Wage-Earners, the Mission-Street Scavenger Has a Felon’s Trademark. This is a chapter in the history of a newspaper and its high priest in To-day THE CALL drags away the mask behind which the e long played a game of Dr. Jekyll and are let down and all who read may learn n so long masquerading as tize friend of hon- has of itseif been a heavy and secret pur- In this recitai of double-dealing and sources and official Suffice that the public er and its iture has been made. 1895, when there was begun at the si of W. R. Hearst’s San Francisco Ec- ufacture of twine in the jutemill at the San Quentin resting to the people of the City and State his precocious example of the customer of this product of con- the twine used in its wrapping and st eighteen months has been made behind v journalism” has been the bor on the P sed that Mr. Hearst was forced out of the as after a particular kind of goods. In other the had to resort to the prison mills for the reason he was un- purchase the article desired elsewhere. Nothing could be further rom the facts. pen mal rds, The Examiner has a monopoly on one particular brand of twine made Quentin jutemills, but a similar twine, made by free labor, is y everv dealer in this pro in San Francisco. Mr. Hearst oys this unique distinction not because there is no demand for these the common channels of t but simply for the prejudice that urers against purchasing or sell- order-books of San Quentin /n as an eight-ply jute wrapping-twine, so called becau: re are eight strands of jute yarn used in making it. In other w twine is the regulation baling article so much in use ong merchants, and particularly among dealers in paper of all kinds. sold wholesale in the open ma in this City at 8 cents a pound. The Examiner pays 5 1-2 cents a pound for its prison-made article. Here are the records of the Examiner purchases according to the prison ticle is k prison the Exa ‘The Prison Wagon That Transports the Examiner Convict-Made Twine From the Jutemill to the Depot of the North Pacific Coast Railway. The Last Shipment, Made on March 3, Consisted of 632 Pounds., Guard Pippen Was in Charge of the Wagon on That Day. [Sketched by a “Call” artist.) " special account on the jutemill books. BT il rm< i IN THE PILLORY. books of C. J. Walden, the present accountant of the jutemill depart- ment of the prison: DATE. Shipment. Amount. October 21, 1895 eeeeenn804 $49 17 October 28. 339 18 37 March o, 18 388 21 34 March 3. 2 33 66 August 10. September 11 356 19 58 November 6. o 3135 December 18. 51 46 8o March 3, 1897 . 32 3476 From these figures it will be seen that the total amount of convict- made twine used by the Examiner since Business Manager Williams made his deal with the prison authorities is 6730 pounds, for which Mr. Hearst has contributed to the San Quentin prison fund the sum of £360 38. Had he bought free-labor goods his twine outlay would have been 8538 10— a very small saving surely for a man reputed to be as rich and affluent as the proprietor of the Examiner. The jutemills at San Quentin'are not in the manufacture of twine as a general thing. The 700 unfortunate men in stripes who labor day in and day out in the midst of a wilderness of whirling machinery expend their energies in the manufacture of jute bags for the California farmer. The agricultural interests of the State have found that the production of these bags by the prison people has resuited in keeping the price at a minimum. Now, twine is used in these bags, and it is made right in the prison, in the ordinary course of business. There are two big ““twisters” and a force of men steadily spinning out the jute cord with which the sacks are sewn together. Little twine is sold. There are but two kinds of twine made at San Quentin and there are but two cus- tomers on the prison books. ‘One is a certain bottler of mineral water in this City, who uses a peculiar three-ply article in- his trade and one which is not on sale in the open market. The other and heavier cus+ tomer for the general article is the San Francisco Examiner. Warden Hale of San Quentin prison does not remember the circum- stances leading up to the Examiner twine deal. As far as he is con- cerned there is no secret about the prison supplying Mr. Hearst’s San Francisco newspaper, “Everybody, | thought, knew we made twine for the Examiner,”’ was the way he put it. *‘There is no secret about the doings of this prison. We make a little money on twine, and if we made much of it, it would, 1 think, be as profitable an industry as the prison could go into.” But the Examiner did not begin to purchase its twine from the jute- mill at any request of Warden Hale or any of the Prison Directors or offi- cials. T. T. Williams, the present business manager of the paper, sought the prison people themselves in the beginning of October, 1895, and got rates and prices. Williams explained in detail the kind of an article the Exammer required, and after some correspondence on the sub- ject arrangements were perfected and, Mr. Hearst and his “Monarch” have'since that time been steady customers of the prison jutemills. The first shipment was made on October 21, 189s. It consisted of 894 pounds, divided into eight bales or parcels. The rate fixed at the prison was 51; cents per pound. The twine was a good article, as the facilities in the prison jutemill to spin jute are the most extensive and complete in America. Apparently the Examiner was pleased with the transaction, for on October 28, just seven days later, the prison was favored with a second order for 339 pounds. From that time on the shipments from the prison to the newspaper have continued steadily and, as far as the San Quentin authorities know, are likely to continue. The newspaper pays its bills quarterly, and the checks are duly entered in a The last shipment was made on March 3 last. There were four bales in the lot, comprising 632 pounds, and the account as rendered to Mr. Hearst called for $34 76. The purchase of its twine supplies at San. Quentin prison, of course, entails no additional expense for freight to this City on the part of the Examiner. The State pays all freight on the output of the jutemill to this City. Thus an intending purchaser of twine would have to take cogni- zance in the way of incidental expense only of "transportation charges from this City to the destination of the shipment. In the case of Mr. Hearst’s purchases the paper has only to figure the item of drayage from the water front to the office of the Mission-street department of the Examiner, where the greater portion of the twine is used. It is the custom of the Examiner to notify the jutemill when it de- sires twine by telephone, although the last order—a fac-similie of which is reproduced—was a short and concise notice from the business depart- ment through the mail. The prison people are always prompt to fill the order. Sometimes in the hurry and worry incidental to publishing a “ new journal ** the matter of twine is overlooked until the supply on hand is exhausted. Then the convicts are taken hurriedly away from the mak- ing of the sewing cord for jute bags to be put to twisting exclusive Ex- aminer twine. It is the custom for the prison authorities to ship all jute goods, unless it is what is known as a “hurry-up order,” by the little The Arrival of the Twine at the Mailing-Rooms of the Examiner on Mission Street. Sketched by a “Call’’ artist. | steamer Caroline, which makes a trip once a week between this City and San Quentin. The Caroline and its master, Captain W. S. Leale, charge up their services to the State, and the bills are ordered paid monthly by the Board of Prison Directors. The most of the Examiner jutemill freight comes by the steamer route. The twine is bundled up in big sacks or bales, and upon arrival here is carefully turned over to a teamster, who is paid regularly for this work. These bundles or bales might pass even the eyes of the curious, and there is little about them to show their con< vict origin. The prison people simply stamp on them a stencil imprint bearing the letters S. Q. P., which, when translated, of course signify San Quentin Prison.” There is another route by which the Examiner receives twine, and that is the North Pacific Coast Railroad, commonly called the narrow gauge, which has direct communication with the prison. ~ If the order is an urgent one—that is, what is facetiously called a ““hurry-up” one—the twine is dispatched by the railroad route. In this manner a consignment may leave the prison in the afternoon and be available for use that same night in the mailing-room of the paper. In such cases the rate is 7 cents a hundred weight, or 81 40 a ton. But as it is customary for-the State to pay the bill, the paper, of course, is not put to any extra expense, and may have its choice of routes of shipment. The -order for the four bales on March 2 last came to the City by rail. It was possibly a fortunate matter that the jutemill happened ta have just this amount of stock on hand, made up between times, so ta speak, ®r just such an emergency. The requisition for the twine was made out in the mailing-room in the mornipg and was inclosed at once to Warden Hale. The shipment arrived in this City the following day, and the mailing-room found it awaiting it as soon as the paper went to press. In the equipment of the State jutemill at San Quentin there is no winding-machine. The Examiner twine, as it comes from the twisting- machine, is consequently wound by hand in large balls and afterward tied up in large sacks. The product being of the 8-ply variety, which is almost as thick as a small clothesline, does nct'wind symmetrically or else the fault lies with the convicts. The balls are bulky and irregular in size and make rather unwieldy bundles. The shipment to the Exam« iner on Wednesday last exhausted the supply of 8-ply twine in the prison. The jutemill authorities expect to turn out some more the coming week, There is a State law providing that any one purchasing goods from the San Quentin jutemill must file an affidavit that the product is desired for his own use. The object of this statute was to prevent dealers in jutebags from effecting a corner in these articles and thus raise the price. Moreover, in the matter of grain sacks a customer is limited to 10,000 at one purchase. The latter part of this law does not, of course, apply to the matter of the Examiner twine, and- in courtesy to Mr. Hearst no affi davit was required from the business manager of his newspaper. The prison authorities were satisfied in this instance that the proprietor of the Examiner desired the twine for his own use and had no intention of going into the twine business. To the credit of the Ezaminer people it may be said that Warden Hale's confidence was not violated. Of the 6600 pounds of 8-ply jute twine made in the past eighteen months at San Quentin not one pound has been resold by the newspaper that received it. The entire output was used in the offices of Mr. Hearst’s local newspaper. So much for the facts in the case. They are peculiarly interesting, coming, as they do, when Wanton Willie and his local journalistic pirate have inaugurated a campaign of intimidation and blackmailing unheard of in newspaper history. The strings that lead out of the back door of the Mission-street office to the barred gates that shut in to hard labor daily in the jutemill half of the striped inmates of the Marin County ' bastile may to a certain extent explain the low moral pressure that has pervaded the Hearst journals latelv. Possibly it is the bond of sympathy that the young millionaire e ———— feels for his twine work- men in San Quentin that has induced him to keep Long Green Lawrence and his ilk on his payroll. Surely along these lines lies the explanation of the Janus-faced character of the Ezaminer. There was no particular reason at the time the Ecaminer engaged to take convict-made twine that any such desperate and questionable expedient of economy should be re- sorted to, except that its proprietor saw in those days the inroads into his coffers his newspaper venture in New York was about to make. But to a man of his wealth the difference be- tween the price of free- labor twine and the convict- made article for wrapping purposes was surely nota matter of great import. The accounts of the jute- ‘mill show that since its trade was transferred to the prison a little over three and a half tons of twine was used in the circulation of the Ezaminer. The product cost 51-2 cents a pound. Yet, had Mr. Hearst de- sired to get rates in the open market he would not have had to pay over 8 cents a pound for as good an arti- cle as he was furnished by the striped jutemill work- men. There is a serious side to the course Mr. Hearst is pursuing. Thereis no de- sire on the part of any one to make the lot of the felons behind the walls of San Quentin any harder or in- crease the odium in which society in general holds its inmates. The State of Cal- ifornia in its wisdom has adjusted the problem of con- vict labor possibly to suit a majority of the people at present. But the felon is not the sufferer from such tactics as those adopted by Mr. Hearst. The workingmen, the labor unions and the busi- ness interests of the State surely expect from the Ez- aminer that it at least be honest in principle. The people, to whom this dis- reputable journal appeals for support, expect at least NEW TO-DAY! BOARD OF HEALTH'S INVESTIGATION —OF— (ORDENSED MILKS AND CREANS AN ITEM OF INTEREST TO MOTHERS. It has been disclosed by the in- vestigation of Dr. Wenzell, the - Chemist of the Board of Health, that the so-called evaporated creams are nothing but pure and simple condensed milk, and in many in- stances very poor condensed milk at that, and while little or nothing can be said in favor of these evaporated creams by Dr. Wenzell, still less is said in favor of most brands of condensed milk, which suffer equally under his searching analysis. Amid all this investiga- tion and hue-and-cry one prominent fact has been brought out with unusual distinctness, and that is, the Gail Borden EAGLE Brand of Condensed Milk has passed through the fiery turnace of investiga- tion of a most searching character, with its usual great success. Every brand, except the Gail Borden Eagle Brand, that has come under the attention of the chemist has had more or less criticism bes stowed upon it, but the Gail Bor- den Eagle Brand has been found to be without a single flaw, and has been pronounced to be the purest and the richest in quality of any brand on the market; superior to evaporated creams in richness; stronger than any milk now before the public. The Pure Food Investi- gation bids fair to be a most searching one, and the public have a great interest at stake, and it is with pleasure that we re- fer now to one brand that seems to have met with the approval of all.