Address by Governor Alfred E. Smith, October 29, 1919, program page 3

Entered from New York Times article ; stated time is approximate. According to the article, this address was Governor Alfred E. Smith's response to a series of attacks against him by newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, which had been escalating for months. Smith denounced Hearst "as an assassin of character, an enemy of the people, and an apostle of discord," and called his newspapers "a pestilence that walks in the dark." A resolution against Hearst was adopted at the meeting, "providing for the appointment of a non-partisan Citizens' Fair Play Committee of 1,000 "to frame a sound public opinion, directed against insidious and disintegrating opinions of his [Hearst's] journals, and to protect the public servants and citizens generally from his irresponsible methods of misrepresentation and slander through the most effective methods it can see fit to employ.""