Incidentally, Harvard men smashed Harold J. Laski, who had the temerity to interject himself into this class war. Laski went to Boston and made a speech to the strikers’ wives, expressing sympathy with their cause; whereat all Boston raged. “I would like to ask you something, Mr. Laski,” said President Lowell, at a dinner party. “Why did you make that speech?” “Why, Mr. Lowell,” said Laski, smiling, “I made it because there is a general impression throughout the labor world that Harvard is a capitalistic institution, and I wanted to show that it is not true.” Laski was only twenty-six years old at the time, and it took some nerve, you must admit. How to get this young incendiary out of Harvard was the next job of the interlocking directorate.
Meet Mr. James Thomas Williams, Jr., of Boston. Mr. Williams was graduated from Columbia University in the same year that I quit it; he then joined the Associated Press, and now serves the interlocking directorate as editor of the Boston “Evening Transcript,” the paper which is read by every Tory in New England. You may learn more about this paper by consulting pages 284, 306, 307 and 379 of “The Brass Check.” Also, perhaps I should tell you a little incident which happened after “The Brass Check” came out. Desiring to test the capitalist newspapers, I made up a dignified advertisement of the book—nothing abusive or sensational, merely opinions from leading journals of Europe. I sent this advertisement, with a perfectly good check, to the Boston “Evening Transcript,” and the check was returned to me, with the statement that the “Transcript” thought it best not to publish the advertisement, because of the possibility of being sued for libel.
I was puzzled at first, wondering what paper might sue the Boston “Evening Transcript” for publishing an advertisement of “The Brass Check.” Then I remembered that in the book I had accused a Boston newspaper of having shared in the slush funds of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad; also of having suppressed reports of Justice Brandeis’ exposures of the Boston Gas Company, at the same time publishing page advertisements from this gas company; also of having published advertisements of “Harvard Beer, 1,000 Pure,” at the same time suppressing news of the fact that the federal government was prosecuting the manufacturers of Harvard Beer for violation of the pure food laws. So I understood that the Boston “Evening Transcript” was afraid of being sued by the Boston “Evening Transcript.”