Epidemic by David DeKok

Author:David DeKok
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lyons Press
Published: 2011-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

Schurman’s troubles were far from over. As jubilant as he had a right to feel in fixing the deal for the filtration plant, he still had to win the battle of public perception. Yes, he could tell parents their children would have clean water by September 1, but the suffering and deaths among the students, let alone townspeople like Louise Zinck, had left a public stain not easily washed away. The sins of Ithaca were known to journalists up and down the East Coast, in every city and town that sent students to Cornell. Newspapers around the country were running wire stories about the epidemic. Calling the university to account for its sins was almost a reflexive act for the newspapers. Schurman complained that “among other things from which we have to suffer at the present time are the awfully sensational reports of the newspapers.” Most of them were not, but they hurt and the worst was yet to come. Weeks later, he would be railing against “the misrepresentations and lies circulated by a sensational press.” While the press made some mistakes, which is true of any big story, much of the coverage and editorials seemed to be accurate and fair.21

Schurman’s most immediate antagonist in the press was the Ithaca Daily News, edited by Gannett and published by Lee. Almost from the very beginning of the epidemic, Duke Lee ordered up aggressive coverage that Gannett was only too happy to provide. The Daily News had published casualty lists and patient updates and kept its reporters busy rooting out stories in an unrelenting effort that angered some of Ithaca’s downtown merchants. The newspaper even chastised its unnamed business critics (“What Matters the Ten-Cent Sale?”) for caring more about profits than the people who provided them. On another occasion, the newspaper issued what we might today call a Schindler-esque statement of regret that it did not do more, did not make the warnings stronger, and was “not able to save the lives of the unfortunate ones for whom today many mourn.” There were stories and hard-hitting editorials about the epidemic in the Daily News nearly every day. By the time the epidemic was over, daily circulation had climbed by 43 percent over 1902.22

A reporter on the Daily News staff, Lynn George Wright, who was a senior at Cornell, may also have been one of the stringers, perhaps the most important one, who fed stories about the typhoid epidemic to the Associated Press and to the various New York City dailies.23 It is not possible to state this with absolute certainty, but the available evidence points in that direction. Wright’s obituary in 1919 said he “earned money for his [Cornell] tuition by writing special articles for the city dailies.” As a reporter for the Daily News and a student to boot, he would have been in a position to know what was going on during the epidemic. Wright was a friend and classmate of George Jean Nathan, who was a reporter that year on the Cornell Daily Sun.

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