welcome catherine olmstead here to the library. she is no stranger to the fdr library, and then we're so glad to have her just a little by way of background. she's a professor of history at the university of california davis. she specializes in political and cultural history of the 20 20th and 21st century with a particular interest in the influence of anti-communism. it's very interesting and conspiracy theories on national politics. it was just saying to her that seems like an absurd field to me, but what do i know? i'm just you know here up at the fdr library. she's the author of five books including the book. she's going to speak of today the newspaper access express barons who enabled hitler i strongly encourage you to read this book if you haven't already it's excellent, and she's also written i'll you a couple examples, right? fornia, the 1930s and the big business roots of modern conservatism. a real enemies conspiracy theories in american democracy world war one to 911 you've got an update for that one. i'm sure that'll get you on the best seller list her work has appeared in washington post the new york times los angeles times lamond and other media outlets so join me and welcome. all right. okay. thank you very much. thank you for that lovely introduction and thank all of you for coming thanks to the thank you to the reading festival organizers for inviting me because i really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you all today. all right, so my recent book is on newspaper publishers and isolationism and what i want to specifically focus on today is the hostel media environment that franklin roosevelt confronted in the 1930s and 1940s. because i think a lot of times today we might ask the question. well, why did he do more in these various circumstances? and i think one piece of the puzzle is that he operated in a very different media environment that we have today. nobody talked about the liberal media in the 1930s because most people got their news from newspapers and the newspapers were owned by very rich conservative publishers for the most part, right? so that's what i want to talk about today and i want to begin by talking about the press reaction. to franklin roosevelt's quarantine speech in 1937 so this was in the context of the spanish civil war and the bombing of guernica and the battle of shanghai. the japanese attacks attacks on chinese civilians in an october of 1937 roosevelt went to chicago and he gave this famous speech where he said that innocent nations needed to be quarantined against what he called epidemic of world lawlessness. and after he gave this major policy address he found himself attacked in the press as a dangerous warmonger. the chicago tribune which was owned by the the steadfast isolationist robert mccormick. concluded that the real danger to the united states came not from abroad from hostel foreign nations, but from the president at home. and the tribune editorialized quote america is told that it has enemy enemies when none attacks. it is told that it has responsibilities where none exists we can keep out of war but not by going out to meet it halfway. the editorials in william randolph hearst newspapers agreed with a tribune the roosevelt was following what it called woodrow wilson's fallacious reasoning. instead of assuring america of peace roosevelt was pursuing the same ominous course toward war that wilson pursued in 1917. and her's concluded that the best way to stay out of war was to continue quote minding our own business. this is in all caps. her's favorite key on the typewriter was the caps lock key and to keep out a foreign entanglements. in hurst view the present president was leading his people into the storm instead of protecting them from it. now roosevelt was really stung by these editorials. he'd expected criticism from mccormick, but he was surprised by the hearst piece and at a press conference the next day. he went off the record to attack the person he called old man hearst. and he said that her senatorial was perfectly terrible awful and the silliest thing ever written. and he said the hurst deliberately misunderstood. his policy the policy was trying to promote in the speech. he said the policy was to keep the us out of war not to drag the us into war. and privately roosevelt complained to his aides that he needed more support from other public officials. and from the press if he was going to persuade the american people to take more forceful action against aggression abroad. and he told an advisor. it's a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you're trying to lead and to find no one there. so would my book tries to do is to is to look at that media ecosystem that made it more difficult for roosevelt to lead. the nation to a more assertive anti-fascist foreign policy. and in the book, i look not only at the foremost important american media moguls, but also the two most important press parents in britain. and i explained how in both the united states and the united kingdom the most influential media magnets dismissed the fascist threat urged appeasement of fascists, or even in some cases published professions propaganda. and these press barons xenophobic nationalist anti-semitic imperialist views made it harder for the anti-fascists in their governments to challenge the nazis earlier. and the press lords insistence that their government should not confront the fascist dictators. made a war against fascism both more likely and more difficult to win. so the six press parents that i examine in the book. there's two britons and four americans collectively reached tens millions of readers. and i refer to their alliances the newspaper access. this was a term that was coined by harold hickeys. who was roosevelt's interior secretary one of his top advisors. and i use the term because i think that it captures the transnational cooperation of these isolationist media moguls, which i'll talk about in a bit. so let me briefly explain the two british, press lords that i examine first of all lord harold rothermere who owned the daily mail which was one of the best-selling papers in the world out of london rather mirror was an overt fascist and he cheered on the british fascists in the early 1930s. he wrote admiring articles hitler throughout the 1930s. so that was rather mirror in the daily mail then i look at another british press lord lord max beaver book who owned the daily express another best-selling newspaper and other newspapers in britain. beaver brook was different from rothermere and that he was not a fascist. he did not write admiring stories about hitler, but he was convinced that the british should have nothing to do with confronting the nazis in europe. when hitler reoccupied the rhineland in 1936 the daily express asked what does it mean to us? and in 1938 as nazi germany threatened to annex austria the express council the british government not to infuriate the nazis by protesting a german invasion. it is we who should get out and stay out the express proclaimed? all right. so those are the two british, press lords that i look at but since we're at the roosevelt library today, i want to focus the talk on the four americans. i want to look at the american newspaper publishers and talk about this media environment. they created for the president. and how they consistently tried to present their isolationism as true americanism. and in particular they tried to present their isolationism as american resistance to what they framed as franklin roosevelt's desire to become a dictator. in fact, they were so convinced that he wanted a war that he needed award to become a dictator that some of them even believe that he concocted a conspiracy to draw the the united states into the war. so these four american newspaper publishers were the most powerful media magnets of their day. so first there was william randolph hearst. was arguably the most important figure in american media history. he owned the largest newspaper chain in the world at his peak. he had 28 newspapers throughout the united states reached 30 million readers a week. one in four americans read a hearse paper on sundays. he also owned 13 mass circulation magazines and a syndication service that sent news and photos and features around the world. and he was a pioneer in new media which new media for the early 20th century, which was newsreels and feature films. right now hurst helped give yellow journalism. its name in the 1890s by using state of the art color presses to print the comic with a popular yellow kid character. his newspapers delivered cartoons eye-popping graphics and sensationalist stories for decades and hearst had a formula he described his ideal newspaper this way. he said you looked at the first page and said, oh gosh and then at the second page and said gee whiz and at the third page and said holy moses. so this obviously worked for him, right? now in addition to hit cursed america's most influential publishers included a trio of cousins. these were all grandchildren of joseph madill who was a founder of the republican party in the 19th century mayor of chicago and owner of the chicago tribune. so he had a media empire and three of his grandchildren went into media. so that one of them was robert mccormick who owned the chicago tribune. the tribune was america's best-selling full-sized non-taboid newspaper. it sold almost a million copies every day and more on sundays. than the other cousin that i look at is joseph patterson. he owned the new york daily news, which was a tabloid america's first tabloid started in 1919. and it was the best-selling paper in the united states indeed the world. more than in 1940 two million daily copies more than three million on sundays in fact right before and during world war two the new york daily news counted the most readers of any newspaper in american history than her sense. and then the third cousin that i look at the fourth prosperian or baroness was sissy patterson. she was joe's sister robert's cousin. she enjoyed the distinction of being the first woman publisher of a major metropolitan daily in the us in the 20th century. and her paper was the washington times herald which probably you don't remember but it was the best-selling selling newspaper in washington dc. and perhaps her greatest importance was that she gave her brother an outlet in washington dc. he wrote very isolationist hard right editorials in new york and he could reach the washington policy makers every day because those editorials were reprinted in the washington times herald. so the mccormick patterson cousins built on their inheritance to acquire a media empire that was second only to hearse. and like hearse they use their papers to proselytize for nationalism appeasement and isolation. so estimating four readers per copy, which is what auditors did at the time the mccormick patterson, press reached more than 12 million americans daily and 20 million on sundays. you know by contrast the newspapers and magazines that supported roosevelt's internationalist foreign policy had far fewer readers. so the most important outlets that we're internationalists were time magazine the new york herald tribune and the new york times and collectively they reached less than a quarter of the hearst patterson mccormick sunday readership. okay, so these newspapers had lots of readers. they were tremendously influential at the time. because they helped mold the public's views on national and foreign affairs. 82% of americans read a daily newspaper in the 1930s 57% of americans said they got most most of their news from newspapers. and presumably many of their opinions as well. archibald macleish was the director of the office of facts and figures roosevelt aid and he expressed the views of many roosevelt advisers when he said that the press played a larger part than any other instrument including government in shaping the public mind. now because of newspapers ability to shape the public mind leaders of both parties monitored and tried to influence newspaper coverage. former president herbert hoover who was desperate to return to a to a leading role in the republican party read 30 newspapers every morning. president roosevelt busy as he was found time to read 11 newspapers every day, including two mccormick patterson papers and one hearse paper and he read editorial summaries compiled by his staff of the other newspapers. so, what did he find in these newspapers? first of all most of them? throughout much of his administration were opposed to the domestic new deal especially robert mccormick and william randolph hearst. now hurst had helped roosevelt win the democratic presidential nomination in 1932, but he had turned against the president by the spring of 1934 largely on two issues. he didn't like roosevelt's protections for unions, and he didn't like roosevelt's taxes on the rich. in his editorials which were often on the front pages of his newspapers hurst blame the new deal for bringing communism. secretly to the country. so here's one typical editorial in 1935 again all caps lock key. since we have moved left, we can see the monstrous russian doctrine being actually applied of grading down the whole population to the level of the lease prosperous. is this the new deal or the new death? so her said that roosevelt's tax plan, which would have raised taxes on the 50 wealthiest people in the united states including him was essentially communism and could have been devised by a composite personality labeled stalin delano roosevelt. now hurst opposition to roosevelt's policies was not confined to the editorial pages despite his rhetorical commitment to objective journalism. so in june of 1935 he directed his editors to not call the tax bill to soak the rich bill, which is roosevelt's title for it. but instead soak the thrifty soak the saving or soak the prosperous. later that summer. this is again 1935. he ordered his editors to use the words raw deal instead of news new deal in the news stories about roosevelt's domestic programs. so mccormick took even less time than hurst to decide that the that the president was worse than stalin. mccormick was was recognized as deeply reactionary at the time one critic called him the greatest mind of the 14th century. and he despised all the new deal programs from the beginning and he was particularly upset with roosevelt for recognizing the soviet union and november of 1933. and so over the next several years. he repeatedly warned that the new deal endangered the constitution corrupted the nation and enslaved the american people. and like her she had no compunction against directing his reporters to shape their news coverage to fit his editorial line, and there are collections right over here in the roosevelt library where there's just memo after memo of mccormick ordering his reporters to slant their stories against roosevelt. all right, so that was mccormick and hurst. they were very opposed to the domestic new deal. joe patterson is an interesting figures. he's the owner of the new york daily news and he was different on domestic policy. he actually backed the domestic new deal until 1940. and he and a sister even endorsed roosevelt for a third term in 1940. and joe patterson was quite liberal on economic issues, especially for a rich newspaper publisher at the time and he supported roosevelt even on some of his most controversial domestic policies like trying to enlarge the supreme court. so patterson was a domestic new dealer but though he disagreed with mccormick and hurst on the domestic, new deal. he and his sister and mccormick and hurst all agreed on foreign policy. they all agreed on the proper response to adolf hitler's aggression in europe. to ignore it they believed it would be disastrous for their country to confront the nazis. now it's important to remember that these these media moguls did not shrink from all military interventions abroad. they cheered on and sometimes even demanded us invasions of latin american nations. so rather than opposing militarism or intervention in general, they opposed american intervention against the nazis specifically. they fought roosevelt's attempts to challenge hitler whose goals as they saw them order anti-communism anglo-saxon domination. they generally supported even as they condemned hitler's methods. now of these four american press parents hurst was the most enthusiastic about fascism at least in the early 1930s. he hired hitler and other nazi officials to write self-serving propaganda for his newspapers and he paid them generously. after meeting hitler and berlin in 1934. hurst was enthusiastic about the way hitler and he said restored character and courage to germany and he wrote hitler certainly as an extraordinary man. he has enormous energy intents enthusiasm a marvelous faculty for dramatic oratory and great organizing ability. hurst also did business with the nazis he made a deal with the official german news company film company where the german newsreels inserted hurst newsreel film in the films that they showed in germany and in return hurst and show inserted german film segments into her snooze reels in the united states. so it was essentially unfiltered nazi propaganda. now the mccormick patterson cousins by contrast did not praise hitler or do business with him, but they did argue strenuously that the united states should have nothing to do with the nazis aggressions against their neighbors and that the united states should be careful not to provoke hitler by objecting to strenuously to his conquests. now joe patterson was such an enthusiast for isolationism that he worked hard to promote the policy across the atlantic. and this is the transatlantic part of it. he cooperated with lord beaverbrook of the london daily express to try and encourage their readers to support isolation and impeasement. and it began like this patterson wrote what was supposed to be a private letter to beaverbrook in 1935 saying that he hoped both britain and the united states would not confront hitler in europe. and then beaver brook was such a fan of the letter. he asked patterson for permission to reprint it on the front page of the london daily express. and patterson gave his permission then beaverbrook started writing a series of editorials about how what a great isolationist joe patterson was and how the new york daily news was standing at for isolationism in the united states and then beaverbrook paid to print 10 million million copies of a flyer. that had patterson's letter in beaver books editorials promoting isolationism and appeasement and then he paid to distribute these throughout britain. he tried to get a copy of this into the hands of every british family. and then throughout the years patterson and beaver brook. published front page editorials public letters news articles letters to the editors about the isolationists on the other side of the pond and they encourage their readers to write to the other newspaper to congratulate the publisher for his isolationism. so it got to absurd that at one point the daily express ran a story about how the daily news was printing letters from daily express readers about daily express stories about the daily news. so they they created this transatlantic isolationist media echo chamber. no, they use many arguments in their campaign to try to urge readers to lobby their governments to stay out of european conflicts. once the war began in europe and the british asked for american help often. the american newspapers would blame the british for manipulating the united states into war. sometimes they would imply that american -- were dragging the united states into war because of their sympathy for what the daily news called their racial can folk in europe. sometimes the american newspapers made explicitly white supremacist arguments. for example a daily news worried that if american anglo-saxons fought germans, then the so-called white race would commit suicide and asians or the yellow race as the daily news called them would take over the world. remember, this is the best-selling newspaper in the country. most often though the prosperians argued that they supported isolationism because they believe that franklin roosevelt would use the war to seize dictatorial control and become an american caesar. they believe that roosevelt wanted to aid hitler's enemies not because he feared for us security not because he sympathized with a victims of fascist aggression, but because he believed that a war would give him the opportunity to seize total control of the government and democracy cancel elections and start his own dynasty. so let me give you a couple of examples mccormick for instance argued even before the war began in europe. the roosevelt was engaged in a conspiracy to drag the country into war he gave an independence day speech in 1939 and what she used the words conspirators or conspirator conspiracy four times in one sentence. to explain roosevelt's goal, which he said was to quote scrap the constitution and supplant it with the terrorism and communism of russia. now after the war began in europe the hearst patterson mccormick, press argued against aiding the british. and even argue that roosevelt again wanted to help the british because he wanted war in the dictatorship that would presumably come with war. so here for example is the hurst press on the lend lease bill if it passed. we may be in our very last hours of peace. we may indeed be in our very last hours of democracy and freedom. if it's sweeping provisions for dictatorship or not eliminated in his own personal column hurst warned his readers that democracy would die if lynn lee's passed. he said well what will happen to dear democracy then she will die in the disaster, of course enveloped in the flames of the holocaust and out of the smoldering ruins of our social and political system will rise scarlet woman of communism. right the chicago tribune news stories on the lynn lease debate made her seem like a moderate. mccormick's reporters did not refer to the lindley's proposal but instead to the president's dictator bill president's dictator bill or the administration's dictatorship bill this was in the news stories. in his editorial mccormick said the proper name would be a bill to destroy the republic. all right, so despite the isolation this warnings the us congress did pass land lease ultimately by a fairly lopsided margin. and then of course did aid britain and then the soviet union and did enter the war in december of 1941. now after the us entered the war some isolationists including her started to tone down their rhetoric and we're no longer so anti roosevelt. but that was not true for the hearst patterns, but for the patterson mccormick cousins, they still believed in maintained in their editorials. the roosevelt had lied and tricked the country into war as part of a long-term campaign become an american dictator. the daily news for example repeatedly predicted that roosevelt was going to cancel elections or rig elections the 1942 elections the 1944 elections. the roosevelt's bid for a fourth term really made them crazy if roosevelt won a fourth term the daily news speculated. it is a cinch bad. he'll want to fifth term and so on until he dies. he's plainly in love with the power of the presidency and determine never to give it up if he could help it. they predicted that he would try to name one of his sons as his successor. the daily news in particular also continued to use the term isolationists through the war and america first for example, here's a daily news editorial from 1944. we're still for america first arn ashamed of it and expect always to be for america first. so they did not feel like the entry into the war had discredited isolationism or the america first movement. okay, how did roosevelt respond to these criticisms of his foreign policy from the right wing? press will after the war began in europe. he set up several different information and propaganda agencies to survey the press and devise strategies to combat. the publisher's isolationist views. there were a lot of staff members devoted to monitoring the press and writing up reports and suggestions for what he could say. in response. he also used to fireside chats as he had throughout his administration to reach out directly to the american people. it was a way of going over the heads of of the press barons and talking directly to americans. in one fireside chat, for example, he said that the war effort must not be impeded by quote a few bogus patriots who use the secret sacred freedom of the press to echo the sentiments of the propagandus in tokyo and berlin. so roosevelt accused them of echoing fascist propaganda, which is actually got it. turned around because they didn't echo fascist propaganda. they were quoted in fascist propaganda. us fascist publications reprinted daily news editorials and nazi radio propagandus red daily news editorials over the over the airwaves. throughout the conflict the mccormick paterson newspapers hinted at a conspiracy behind the us entry into the war that might or might not ever be exposed. they suggested there were some documents in hyde park that were being hidden from the public that would reveal the roosevelt had known in advance about pearl harbor. and it was the chicago tribune that published the first major pearl harbor conspiracy theory story immediately after the war ended that suggested the roosevelt had advanced knowledge of the attack. mccormick said it was the worst conspiracy in us history. and to believe the pearl harbor conspiracy theory one had to think that roosevelt and other national leaders had been involved in this from you know, massive convoluted plot to draw american tour knowingly killed thousands of americans in the process and then hit or faked evidence to conceal their crime. but that's how mccormick and his cousins saw the history of world war two in their view, japan and germany never posed a real threat to the united states the american people fought largely for three and a half years. at least in part to gratify franklin roosevelt's ego. so let me conclude by. just asking why is the story of the isolationist mainstream press of the 30s and 40s largely forgotten. and i would argue that historians of conservatism have often listened to the respectable voices of the elite media or intellectuals. instead of the voices of the enraged populace despite the greater reach of the latter. and the more highbrow quality newspapers may have influenced opinion leaders, but hurst mccormick in the patterson's shape the views of millions of ordinary americans. this was a very dangerous moment in world history as hitler built up as military invaded as neighbors and started a world war. yet at this dangerous moment these press barons work together to minimize the fascist threat. their divisive politics and sometimes hateful messages have entering appeal the last of the press lords died more than a half century ago, but there are errors in the right-wing media. still continue this crusade for america first. so that is where i will end it and i'm happy to take your questions. and if you have questions step up to the microphone, yeah. thank you. john harbath the retired from university of pittsburgh. i have a question with what's going on now with. right-wing media acting just as hearst in the pattersons did back then. how do you think fdr would advise president biden is to how to respond what we you know, what would he have done or advised him to do that? it's not being done right now. that's a really interesting question. but first of all, i should preface this by saying, you know historians should never predict the future, right? yeah. i'm telling you never wears out. but but we first of all i'd say, you know, there are obvious parallels. yeah with the the right wing we having sympathy for putin's russia, right? would say that roosevelt would unquestionably advise biden in this and other policy areas that he should get out there and fight. i mean, that's what roosevelt did right, you know, he did not. the whole you know, there were these tens of millions of people who are reading newspapers put out by men who just hated him right and believed. he was the devil incarnate, you know, everything he did was for his own advantage. and he didn't just say well, you know, that's the way things are he went out there and fought them. what kind of language would he use of because now we actually have the right-wing media saying that he's not really the president. he lost the election, you know, just trying to totally delegitimize him, right? right. well in a way you can listen to those daily news editorials from 1942 in 1944 and see that they're trying to delegitimize it's only because he won by such big margins that they didn't succeed if it had been close elections. i'm sure they would have said that they were stolen right. so i think there are a lot of parallels. i think that you just you as a policy maker. you you have to get out there and fight for your beliefs. you have to be a strong advocate for what you believe because who else is going to fight for you if you're not going to okay? well, thank you. hi there acknowledging first that this is not the area of your book so you may not know anything about it, but i'm curious the other major way that that people at that time would have gotten news would have been the radio. are you aware from your research of anything about how news presented on the radio contrasted with the the newspaper barons that you talk about? that's a very interesting point. there is a shift. from the mid to the late 1930s in its early days and even up through the mid 30s a lot of the radio presenters would just read newspaper stories on the air. they wouldn't generate their own news content. they would have commentators. who? right would run the gamut of opinion but the news stories. were usually just taken from the newspapers and about a third of the radio stations by the mid-1930s were actually owned by newspapers. so the the key example here would be wgn which stands for world's greatest newspaper, which in chicago, and it had a 50,000 watt signal and you could hear all over in large part of the country on a clear night and mccormick had his own show on the radio. so he had another medium to use to you know change american minds. but what's interesting, is that by the time that the war starts in europe in 1939 largely because technology is improving and also there's just more resources given to radio the radio networks now have correspondence in in europe. and the key example here would be william r murrow, right? so people would i'm sorry edward r murrow. and people would hear his reports from london where he's like actually standing on the rooftops. while the nazi bombers are coming in and that had a huge effect on making americans much more empathetic with the victims of fascism. so by 1939 certainly by 1940 radio is becoming a medium that from promotes interventionism, but that's not true in the mid 1930s. thank you. full time you get hi. thank you for this. conference. i'm sorry for my english because it's not my first language. i want to know. you you your book for who? do you want to make a warning about to be criticism criticist about media or social media? well citizen well the us citizen or i think that came later i the book really emerged out of the archives and on my work on conspiracy theory, so i wrote a book on american conspiracy theories from world war one to 9/11 and one of the chapters is on pearl harbor. and so i spent a lot of time chasing documents and archives all over the country. it's like how the pearl harbor conspiracy theory emerged and i discovered to my surprise at the time when i started out that it was a right-wing theory when it started out. it was very anti rosevelt and that it was promoted by the chicago tribune. and so then i then i started reading more mccormick editorials and wow. this is really out there and then then i started getting interested in his cousin joe patterson, and it was harder to find the new york daily news editorials because they weren't digitized at the beginning of the time i started it was just a few years ago that they showed up in database. so it makes it much easier. for historians and i started to think about that and to think you know, what else have we missed? because we're looking at the new york times. we're looking at time magazine into some degree. we're looking at the chicago tribune because it's been digitized. but there's this whole range of isolationist newspapers out there anti-new deal newspapers out there that you've had to go through all of this microfilm. to to to find the stories and i started thinking about well if you if you start from those sources. from the actual news articles and editorials that were published that were so anti roosevelt if you go into the archives of the editors and reporters and look at their private conversations about how they viewed roosevelt and his policies then how does that change our opinion of why roosevelt, you know failed in some of his policies, you know, why didn't he try harder to bring in more refugees? why didn't he fight harder to confront hill or earlier? you know, why didn't he fight harder when he got pushed back on the quarantine speech, you know, and so so it was really sort of a historian's motive. i guess where i started to say. i'm not sure that we totally understand the story because we haven't been looking at the right sources. and then of course once i got into it i was like wow look at the parallels, right and there could be real lessons for today. thank you.