- Date of Birth: December 12, 1830
- Place of Birth: Salton, Haddingtonshire, Scotland
- Date of Death: 1901
- Claim to Fame: journalist who said that there is no independent press
Though he was born in Scotland, John Swinton emigrated to Canada and, later, to the United States, where he learned the printer's trade. While studying medicine in the 1850's, he began to contribute articles to the New York Times, and was offered a position on the editorial staff of the paper. He eventually became managing editor of the New York Times, and, later, of the New York Sun. Passionate about labor reform, he became a leader in the movement, and began to publish his own weekly labor sheet, John Swinton's Paper.
Swinton is especially known for a speech that he gave one night in 1880. At a dinner that was given in his honor, a colleague toasted the independent press. Swinton was outraged and responded:
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"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it.
"There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.
"The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press?
"We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."
(Source: Labor's Untold Story, by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais, published by United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America, NY, 1955/1979.)Last updated: January 21, 2009.
