William Randolph Hearst

                                                                                          By: Christian Gutierrez 

     William Randolph Hearst was born on April 29, 1863, in San Francisco, California. William Randolph Hearst was the greatest newspaper baron in the history of the United States. When William was 23 years old, he asked his father if he could take over the operation of the San Francisco Examiner, a newspaper that his father had acquired as payment for a gambling debt. His father gave in and William took over the newspaper.                

      In the 1920's, he firmly established his media empire, it constisted of 20 daily and 11 sunday newspapers  in 13 cities. One in four Americans in the 1920's a Hearst newspaper daily. In 1924 he opened "The New York Mirror" a racy tabloid that was an imitation of the innovative "New York Daily News", which ran many photographs to illustrate its fine reporting.

     Hearst used his power with the press to gain Political power, this goes to show you that, People with the most voice and recognition, are always on the top, and Hearst, used his Press power, to advertise both good and bad things. This time-line under this shows Hearst activities starting at 1900, and leading on to the late 1920's.

Hearst, whose influence extended to publishing, politics, Hollywood, the art world and everyday American life. His power and vision allowed him to pursue one of the most ambitious architectural endeavors in American history, the result of which can be seen in magnificent grounds and structures of Hearst Castle. He symbolizes the American Dream, he was able to achieve so much, he was well known, respected, wealthy, and was living the American Dream.

      Timeline:

• 1900 - Hearst started the Chicago American and the National Association of Democratic Clubs, attacked McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt with cartoons.
• 1901 - He attacked Tammany Boss Richard Croker, Murphy, Van Wyck, Ice Trust. Hearst was blamed for McKinley death; changed the name of his New York paper to "American and Journal" and then simply the New York American.
• 1902 - He won election to Congress, but Madison Square Garden fireworks celebration killed dozens.
• 1903 - He married 21-year old chorus girl Millicent, who would be the mother of his 5 sons: George 1904, Junior 1907, John 1909, twins Randolph & David 1915.
• 1904 - He bought the Los Angeles Examiner, lost presidential nomination to Alton Parker, won re-election to Congress
• 1905 - He moved into the Clarendon apartment; purchased Cosmopolitan magazine to join Motor of 1903, added Good Housekeeping and Hearst's Magazine in 1911 and Harper's Bazaar in 1912. Hearst ran for mayor of New York City.
• 1906 - He lost governor election to Charles Evans Hughes because Roosevelt and the Democratic party leadership betrayed him; he used talking machine records and motion pictures and illustrated newspaper Farm and Home
• 1909 - He created INS to coordinate syndication services
• 1910 - Hearst lost Lt. Gov. race in New York, his "last hurrah as an independent." Next year he declared himself to be a member of the Democratic party.
• 1915 - He opposed U.S. entry into WWI and was widely hated.
• 1916 - He produced History of the World's Greatest War from German footage; sent his own cameraman Nelson Edwards to film behind German lines for Hearst News Pictorial.
• 1920 - He opposed League of Nations and Al Smith. He failed to get VP nomination; His Cosmopolitan films were distributed by Adolph Zukor and Paramount.
• 1922 - He lost NY governor nomination to Al Smith.
• 1923 - He was slow to establish tabloid Mirror in New York.
• 1927 - Hearst bought the 140-room Belmont house on the Long Island beach for Millicent, the model for the Great Gatsby's mansion in F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel; Hearst sponsored the trans-Atlantic flight stunt, but the Old Glory plane crashed in the Atlantic with no survivors. He published the Avila documents in November that described plot against U.S. by communist Calles and bribery of 4 Senators.
• 1928 - Hearst Radio Service network began on the West Coast.
• 1929 - He started a press campaign against World Court after Hoover proposed U.S. membership and allowed Congresswoman Ruth McCormick, sister-in-law of Cissy Patterson, to speak against it over the radio; Winston Churchill visit to San Simeon in September; signed talking picture alliance with William Fox and his Movietone Newsreel and started Hearst Metrotone Newsreel in October; converted Embassy Theater in NYC to all-newsreels Oct. 28; Marion indicted for income tax fraud.

Quotes

“You must keep your mind on the objective, not on the obstacle.”

“Putting out a newspaper without promotion is like winking at a girl in the dark -- well-intentioned, but ineffective.”

“News is something somebody doesn't want printed; all else is advertising.”

“You can crush a man with journalism.”

“Don't be afraid to make a mistake, your readers might like it.”

“You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war.”

“In suggesting gifts: Money is appropriate, and one size fits all.”

“Try to be conspicuously accurate in everything, pictures as well as text. Truth is not only stranger than fiction, it is more interesting.”

“Any man who has the brains to think and the nerve to act for the benefit of the people of the country is considered a radical by those who are content with stagnation and willing to endure disaster.”

“The coming of the motion picture was as important as that of the printing press.”

(Quotes From: http://thinkexist.com/quotes/william_randolph_hearst/ )

http://www.zpub.com/sf/history/willh.html

http://www.hearstcastle.org/history/william_r_hearst.asp