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public officials were giving things to newspaper reporters all the time and everybody who said he was a newspaper reporter acted as though he was entitled to everything. Everybody acted in response as though he was entitled to it.

One can see what it all has developed into now, and they were doing it during all that period. It's developed into a situation where the words of the Constitution which guarantee free speech and free press have been interpreted by the press as no court of law ever interpreted it, or as no person who understands language or political history could possibly have interpreted it. All that clause in the Constitution means is that anybody can buy himself a printing press - anybody: you, I - and can print anything he pleases on it and distribute it. He can print anything he pleases. It doesn't even have to be true. He can print the Lord's Prayer, or he can print the Communist Manifesto. He's got the right to do that if he owns the press. That's all that clause means.

These newspapers are not a press. These newspapers are a business. They deal in a commodity known as publicity and news and are out to see their newspapers make money. They will put into the newspaper whatever they think will sell it, or if it happens to be owned by somebody of very marked opinions like Colonel McCormick, they'll put into