#145 William Randolph Hearst

**David Senra** (0:00)
When Hearst was in college, he wrote his father that he intended to do something in publishing and politics. And he did, becoming San Francisco's, then New York's, and finally, the nation's most powerful publisher.
He served two terms in Congress, and was, for half a century, a major force in American politics.
There has never been, nor most likely will there ever be again, a publisher like William Randolph Hearst. Decades before synergy became a corporate cliche, Hearst put the concept into practice. His magazine editors were directed to buy only stories which could be rewritten into screenplays to be produced by his film studio, and serialized, reviewed, and publicized in his newspapers and magazines. He'd broadcast the news from his papers over the radio and pictured it in his newsreels.
He was as dominant and pioneering a figure in the 20th century communications and entertainment industries as Andrew Carnegie had been in steel, JP. Morgan had been in banking, John D. Rockefeller in oil, and Thomas Edison in electricity.
At the peak of his power in the middle 1930s, Time magazine estimated his newspaper audience alone at 20 million of the 120 million plus men, women, and children in the nation.
His daily and Sunday papers were so powerful as vehicles of public opinion in the United States that Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Winston Churchill all wrote for him.
At the end of my research, the Hearst I discovered was infinitely more fascinating than the one I had expected to find.
This was also Winston Churchill's experience during his visit with Hearst.
Hearst was the most interesting to meet, Churchill wrote. I got to like him. A grave, simple child with no doubt a nasty temper, playing with the most costly toys, a vast income always overspent, ceaseless building and collecting, two magnificent establishments, two charming wives, complete indifference to public opinion, a 15 million daily circulation, extreme personal courtesy, and the appearance of a Quaker elder.
That was an excerpt from the book that I want to talk to you about today, which is The Chief, The Life of William Randolph Hearst, and was written by David Nasaw. This is a gigantic book, over 600 pages.
This is the second book written by David Nasaw that I've read for the podcast. The first one was on Joseph P. Kennedy. It's called The Patriarch. It's all the way back on, I think, Founders Number Four, and it's a biography of the founder of the Kennedy Family dynasty. Nasaw writes huge, epic biographies. This one's over 600 pages. There's no time to waste. I want to jump right into it. I think it's important to understand that there would be no William Randolph Hearst if it wasn't for the accomplishments of his father, George Hearst.
And when I was reading this book, it really reminded me when I read the biography of Howard Hughes for Founders Number 59, I think George Hearst is to William Randolph Hearst as Howard Hughes Senior was to Howard Hughes Junior. What I mean by that is the son's accomplishments could have never happened without the financial and entrepreneurial accomplishments of the father. So George Hearst was born relatively poor. He had no education to speak of. He was just interested in mining.
And did all of his learning on his own. And through his mining companies, which he worked at for multiple decades, he became one of the richest people in the United States. He also became a US. Senator. So that is the father of William Randolph Hearst. And the reason I bring that up is because just like Howard Hughes Senior Tool Company, which has to be, I think I said on the podcast, number 59, it has to be one of the most profitable private companies that have ever existed. And what Howard Hughes did, the junior, he used a lot of the profits from his father's company to invest in his aviation company and his movie company, everything else. William Randolph Hearst does the exact same thing. There's many times in this book that he's going to rely on the assets that his father leaves behind after he passes away to make up for all of the losses that his company was experiencing. So I just want you to keep that in mind because I think it's important to understand the career of William Randolph Hearst by knowing that. Now, I want to bring you to a conversation that his father is having with his mother. And you can kind of guess at that brief description I gave you, you know, George Hearst is kind of a hard ass. And so his mother is having this conversation. It's like, why are we going to put little Willie, as they were calling him, into public school? And so it says, Phoebe asked if the public schools were not rather tough and tumble for a delicate child like Willie. This is his father's response. I do not see anything particularly delicate about Willie, replied Willie's father. If the public schools are rough and tumble, they will do him good. So is the world rough and tumble. Willie might as well learn to face it. Okay, let me give you a description of, I'm gonna call him WR. That's what everybody calls William Randolph Hearst. So let me give you a description of WR's childhood, and in this description of his childhood, I'll be able to tell you more about his father. Hearst's childhood was defined by impermanence. He had, by the time he was 10 years old, lived many different lives. The rich boy in the mansion, the new kid forced to attend public schools because his father had run out of money, the pampered child who toured Europe, the boy who boarded with his mother. There was no center, no place that he could call his own. School had provided no continuity. He was shifted and stunted, withdrawn and newly enrolled in school after school without rhyme or reason.