George seldes spanish civil war

Seldes ultimately wrote twenty-one books. His later volumes included The Great Quotations and The Great Thoughtscompilations of ideas that he had collected on thousands of index cards during years of reading, writing, and interviewing. His wife died inwhen Seldes was eighty-eight years old.

George seldes spanish civil war: During this period he also

He continued living in his rural Vermont home, relying on the help of his friends and neighbors. He lived to enjoy recognition for his work late in his life. In he received a George Polk Award for lifetime contributions to journalism. His autobiography, Witness to a Centurypublished when he was ninety-six, revived his professional reputation, as did the Academy Award—nominated documentary Tell the Truth and Runcompleted ina year after his death.

He was cremated, and his ashes were buried in the front yard of his longtime home in Hartland Four Corners, Vermont, next to those of his wife. Timely and needed, his criticisms came as many cities and towns lost competing newspapers and massive corporate media monopolies replaced earlier press barons. Seldes loved to write about himself and his journalistic exploits, but his most thorough effort was his autobiography Witness to a Century: Encounters with the Noted, the Notorious, and the Three SOBs His significant writings are reprinted in Randolph T.

Holhut, The George Seldes Reader Cite this george seldes spanish civil war Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. January 9, Retrieved January 09, from Encyclopedia. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.

Humanities Encyclopedias almanacs transcripts and maps Seldes, George Henry. Seldes,' " George recalled in "Witness to a Century. Helen would assist George on all of his writing projects until her death in After writing an objective history of the Catholic Church, "The Vatican: Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow," and an expose of the world armaments industry, "Iron, Blood and Profits," in ; Seldes wrote the most complete account of the life of Mussolini and how he came to power, "Sawdust Caesar," in He then turned his attention to the transgressions of the American press with "Freedom of the Press" in and "Lords of the Press" in General Franco's forces were well equipped by Germany and Italy, who used Spain as a proving ground for their weapons and tactics.

The Republicans, the people who were fighting to take back their country, were outnumbered and outgunned. The major American newspapers of the time took the side of Franco, who was portrayed as ridding Spain of communism. They similarly lauded Mussolini and Hitler for ridding their countries of "the Red menace. The whole Spanish experience left Seldes and others on the American Left embittered and angry.

Evil had triumphed, no thanks to the press lords who refused or were to afraid to print the truth about fascism. The newsletter's mission was clearly stated on its masthead: "An Antidote for Falsehood in the Daily Press. Liebling in his classic book, "The Wayward Pressman. But he is a useful citizen. In fact is a fine little gadfly, representing an enormous effort for one man and his wife.

For 10 years, we pounded on tobacco as being one of the only legal poisons you could buy in America. Reporters who could not get their stories published in the papers they worked for gave their information to Seldes on the sly. In fact was a success. It proved that there were a lot of people in America who believed, like Seldes, that they were not getting the truth from their newspapers.

A combination of incessant Red-baiting and the apathy of the liberal-left forced Seldes to close down In fact in October Edgar Hoover's FBI compiled lists of people who subscribed to In fact as well as other liberal publications. Many of Seldes' subscribers cancelled their subscriptions for fear of being branded "subversives. I didn't have the money to sue them for libel.

My lawyer told me it would take years to reach a settlement and I even if I won I would never see a dime. There was no way I could fight them. When I first met Seldes ina stroke a couple of years earlier slowed him somewhat. He couldn't remember much of the present but his memory of the past was marvelous.

George seldes spanish civil war: Next, he related his experiences as

He was under round-the-clock care and couldn't walk without assistance. His eyesight was still pretty good, but his hearing was about gone. He tired easily and he spent much of each day sleeping. But people still found their way to his home in Hartland-Four-Corners, Vermont to visit a man who has seen so much history. He was always ready to talk.

People thought 'this guy is a troublemaker, the hell with him. He was the first of the muckrakers. As he once said, 'where there's muck, I'll rake it. I guess I never worried about that. In turn, Seldes inspired Stone to start his own newspaper. I gave him my subscription list, the 'Five Dollar Liberals' we called them, and he got his paper going.

He wasn't nostalgic for the good old days for he knew that they were not always good, especially in his chosen profession. Things were pretty crude in my time, but it's a new world now. These Spaniards were murdered for only one reason—they believed in liberal democracy, just as we Americans do here in this country. Seldes documents the leading role of the Vatican in the destruction of the Spanish Republic.

The murder ofliberal democrat prisoners by Franco was undoubtedly made easier by Pope Pius XI. We send your excellency and to all the noble people of Spain our apostolic benediction. God in his compassion will lead Spain on the safe road of your traditional and Catholic greatness. The hierarchy was as responsible as guns and planes in destroying the Republic.

It monopolized schools. It propagated Fascism for 39 years. Why would the Vatican propagate Fascism? Most important, Franco turned the schools over to the Catholic Church. In the second year of the war the Archbishop of Grenada gave his george seldes spanish civil war to the catechism of the Jesuit priest Angel Maria de Arcos. This catechism was so unbelievable, so obscurantist, incredible, outrageous, that when John Langdon-Davies wrote about it in a London liberal magazine he was attacked by numerous Catholic editors, accused of making the whole thing up.

He sued for libel, established the veracity of the catechism, and won his case. Here is what the children in many eastern cities, including Granada, were taught:. They are contrary to Catholic faith, to justice, and to virtue, and as such condemned by the Church. The Liberal system is the weapon with which the accursed Jewish race makes war on our Lord Jesus Christ, and his Church, and on the Christian people.

In the new classic catechism, known as the Nuevo Repaldiand used nationally, was published and introduced into every secondary school in Spain. It consists of pages, and was fully described by the U. Of the ten pages which concern themselves with the essential doctrines of Catholic faith and morals, here are a few samples:. The right to print and publish without previous censorship all kinds of opinions, however absurd and corrupting they may be.

Yes … Because he contributes his money to evil, places his faith in jeopardy, and gives a bad example. The following: 1. If they call themselves liberal. If they defend freedom of conscience, freedom of worship, freedom of the press, or any of the other liberal errors. If they attack the Roman Pontiff, the clergy, or the religious orders.

If they belong to liberal parties. If they comment on news or judge personalities with a liberal criterion. If they unreservedly praise the good moral and intellectual qualities of liberal personalities and parties. If, in reporting events concerned with the battle waged by Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Church against their enemies today, they remain neutral.

These two catechisms make it clear just how strongly the Catholic Church feels about freedom of the press, as well as with what disdain and contempt it views this vital democratic principle. The Churchman published numerous articles on this topic, as did the New Republic. During the late s he had one more stint as a foreign correspondent, on a freelance basis, in Spain during the Spanish Civil War.

He exposed the health hazards of cigarettes and attacked the mainstream press for suppressing them, blaming the newspapers' heavy dependence on cigarette advertising. He cited J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI for anti-union georges seldes spanish civil war, and brought attention to the National Association of Manufacturers ' use of advertising dollars to produce news stories favorable to its members and suppress unfavorable ones.

Having both staunch admirers and strong criticsSeldes influenced some younger journalists. He received an award for professional excellence from the Association for Education in Journalism in [ 4 ] and a George Polk Award for his life's work in When he was 19, Seldes went to work at the Pittsburgh Leader. An early scoop of his for this paper was when three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan expelled Seldes from Bryan's hotel room.

As a young journalist, he was influenced by the investigative journalism of muckraker Lincoln Steffenswhom he met in ; he was also influenced by Walter Lippman. InSeldes moved to London where he worked for the United Press. When the United States joined the First World War inSeldes was sent to France where he worked, first briefly as the managing editor of the Army edition of the Chicago Tribunebased in Paris, [ 16 ] then as the war correspondent for the Marshall Syndicate.

He became a member of the press corps of the American Expeditionary Forces in France, section G-2D, and as such was commissioned as an officer, as were all journalists in that group. At the end of the war, he obtained an exclusive interview with Paul von Hindenburgthe supreme commander of the German Army, in which Hindenburg supposedly acknowledged the role America had played in defeating Germany.

They were also forbidden to write anything about the interview and it never appeared in American news media. Seldes believed that blocking publication of this interview proved tragic. Unaware of Hindenburg's direct testimony of Germany's military defeat, Germans adopted the Dolchstoss or stab-in-the-back myth that Germany had only lost the war because it was betrayed at home by "the socialists, the Communists and the Jews," which served as Nazism 's explanation for Germany's defeat.

However, it was Hindenburg himself, who in a hearing before a committee of the German National Assembly investigating the causes of the World War and Germany's defeat, on November 18,a year after the war's end, declared, "As an English general has very truly said, the German Army was 'stabbed in the back'," grossly misrepresenting General Frederick Maurice 's book, The Last Four Months.

Seldes claimed that the Battle of Saint-Mihiel never happened. In his account, General Pershing planned to capture the city, but on September 1 the Germans decided to remove their forces from Saint-Mihiel to reinforce other positions. The thousands of German prisoners captured, he wrote, were taken as they mistakenly arrived at the train station days later to relieve the German troops that had left days earlier.

Seldes spent the next ten years as an international reporter for the Chicago Tribune. At the instigation of war correspondent Floyd Gibbonshe dropped the name "Henry", and started covering international affairs, despite originally being relunctant to do so. He and three other reporters were expelled in when Soviet authorities, who routinely censored foreign reporters' telegraphed dispatches, found articles by the four reporters, disguised as personal letters, being smuggled out in a diplomatic mailpouch to avoid censorship.

The expulsion was facilitated, according to Seldes, after his publisher and owner, "Colonel" Robert R. McCormickfailed to show sufficient respect when writing to the Soviets to protest censorship. Inthe Chicago Tribune sent him to Italy where he wrote about Benito Mussolini and the rise of fascism. Mussolini had served as Seldes's stringer before the former took power.

His article implicated Mussolini in the killing, and Seldes was expelled from Italy. Inthe Chicago Tribune sent Seldes to Mexicobut his articles criticizing American corporations for their use of that country's mineral rights were not well received. Seldes returned to Europe, but found that his work increasingly censored to fit the political views of the newspaper's owner, McCormick.

Disillusioned, Seldes left the Tribune and went to work as a freelance writer. In his first two books, You Can't Print That! His next book, World Panoramawas a narrative history of the interbellum period. In he married Helen Larkin Wiesman later Seldeswho died in the late s. Two books on the newspaper business established his enduring reputation as a critic of the press: Freedom of the Press and Lords of the Press With his wife Helen, [ 29 ] he also reported on the Spanish Civil War on a freelance basis for three years and later said that American reporters too readily accepted what the Franco side wanted them to believe.

On August 4,Seldes, along with other writers and intellectuals, signed a letter condemning anti-Soviet attitudes in the United States, called for better relations between the two countries, described the Soviet Union as a supporter of world peace, and said, "The Soviet Union considers political dictatorship a transitional form and has shown a steadily expanding democracy".

The letter was published in Septembershortly after the Molotov—Ribbentrop Pact had become known in the United States, and later in September, same month that the Soviet invasion of Poland began. On his return to the United States inSeldes published Witch Huntan account of the persecution of people with left-wing political views in America, and The Catholic Crisiswhich sought to demonstrate the close relationship between the Catholic Church and fascist organizations in Europe.

When Time reviewed the latter, it noted several of Seldes' works and said he "stuck out his tongue at Benito Mussolini From toSeldes published a political newsletter, In Fact which originally had the full name In Fact: For the millions who want a free press [ 33 ] and later In Fact: An Antidote for Falsehood in the Daily Press"a four-page weekly compendium of news other newspapers wouldn't print.

So they fed stories critical of the press to Seldes. One of the first articles published in the newsletter concerned the dangers of cigarette smoking. For ten years we pounded on tobacco as being one of the only legal poisons you could buy in America.

George seldes spanish civil war: George Seldes was an

If you were to read the press itself, you'd hardly become aware that such organizations existed, that businessmen worked together to pursue their own interests. In Fact immediately attracted the attention of government authorities. President Franklin D. In Fact lost many of its subscribers in the late s. Seldes later claimed that his critical coverage of Yugoslavia got the publication banned from Communist Party bookstores.

The political climate discouraged subscriptions on the part of less ideologically committed readers as well. Stone's Weeklywhich started publication intook In Fact as its model.

George seldes spanish civil war: During the late s he had

In addition to writing his newsletter, Seldes continued to publish books. They included Facts and Fascism and One Thousand Americansan account of the people who controlled America. Time called One Thousand Americans "a collection of truths, half-truths and untruths about the U. Communist Party since well before who was valued for his "major connections" in Washington.

Seldes later wrote that In Fact was founded at the instigation of the U. Communist Party leadership, but he wrote that the party worked through his partner Bruce Minton also known as Richard Bransten without his knowledge. Seldes wrote that he was unaware that Minton was a party member who received the funds to start In Fact from the Communist Party.

As the Cold War took shape at the end of the decade, Seldes lost readership from both the Communists and the anti-liberal-left sentiment that was sweeping the country, including a trade union movement that had contained some of his largest audience. Senator Joseph McCarthy subpoenaed Seldes in Seldes vehemently denied Communist Party membership and was "cleared" by McCarthy's Senate subcommittee, but Seldes's greatest influence on readers had already passed.

He was approached, however, by an old friend and colleague, I. Stone, for advice on how to start a small independent investigative newspaper. Stone's Weekly premiered inpicking up where Seldes had left off. Largely dropping his own writing, he developed an anthology called The Great Quotations and received rejections from 20 publishers.

It sold more than a million copies when it appeared in In a letter to Time magazine inhe appraised the state of American journalism as much improved in his lifetime: [ 48 ].