John R. Rathom
Encyclopedia
John R. Rathom was a journalist, editor, and author based in Rhode Island
at the height of his career. In the years before World War I, he was a prominent advocate of American participation in the war against Germany. His claims that his newspaper staff uncovered foreign espionage plots were eventually revealed as largely fraudulent, though his reputation as an heroic anti-German crusader endured. He later engaged in a long public dispute with Franklin Delano Roosevelt early in the future president's career. He cut a large figure in the world of journalism and as a conservative spokesman on such issues as anti-Bolshevism
and the League of Nations
.
Time
magazine described him as a firm believer in the old newspaper saying, "Raise hell and sell papers."
Rathom did not attend Harrow
in England as he claimed. Nor did he report on the British military campaign in the Sudan in 1886 for the Melbourne Argus
. His tales of adventures in China, including service in the Chinese Navy, are likely fictions as well. His claim to have joined the Schwatka Expedition to Alaska in 1878-80 can not be verified. He probably arrived in the U.S. in 1889—he provided various dates—and then worked for short periods at several Canadian and American newspapers on the West Coast.
He joined the San Francisco Chronicle
as a staff correspondent in 1896. Two years later, during the Spanish-American War
, the Chronicle sent him to Cuba. In his ensuing adventures, all dubious, he was badly wounded, returned to the U.S. with yellow fever or malaria, and escaped from a medical isolation camp. He sailed to South Africa, he later said, to cover the Boer War, but no evidence supports him. His claim that he was twice wounded there is equally suspect. His boast that he counted General Kitchener
as a friend from that time until the general's death in 1916 has been called "moonshine."
By his own account, in his next position as staff correspondent for the Chicago Times-Herald (later the Chicago Record Herald
) he became "one of the best known newspaper men in the country." He covered the 1903 Iroquois Theater Fire
with great distinction. Rathom himself called that story "a classic of deadline journalism."
Rathom became a naturalized American citizen on March 25, 1906 in Chicago. He later claimed that he cherished the congratulatory telegrams he received on that occasion from William McKinley
and Theodore Roosevelt
. McKinley had died more than four and a half years earlier.
Rathom misrepresented his personal life as well. On July 5, 1890, he married Mary Harriet Crockford in Canada. In 1899, he began an affair with Florence Mildred Campbell in San Francisco. His wife returned home to Canada, ending their relationship. Soon Rathom and Campbell were living together as husband and wife, though no record of their marriage has surfaced. The first Mrs. Rathom only sued for divorce in 1908, naming Campbell as co-respondent, and the marriage was dissolved in 1909. For the previous three years Rathom and Campbell were representing themselves to Providence society as husband and wife. Evidence from family correspondence suggests that Campbell began to style herself Mrs. Rathom in 1903. All Rathom's various biographical accounts omitted his first marriage.
In 1906, Rathom applied for work at the Providence Journal
and won the post of managing editor. In 1912, he became both editor and general manager at the Journal and its afternoon edition, the Evening Bulletin. Upon his death in 1923, Time
magazine reported that the two newspapers were "said to be one of the most money-making magazine combinations in the U. S."
Duped or willingly misled by sources whose information confirmed his own pro-British sympathies, Rathom then exaggerated his own organization's role in uncovering the supposed plots. In speeches at pro-British assemblies, he amplified the Journal's breathless accounts of journalists running undercover operations and thwarting foreign intrigues.
Newspapers across the country reprinted the Providence Journal exclusives, magnifying Rathom's myth that he was directing a cadre of counterspies The national press turned Rathom and the Journal into heroes, naming both the editor and the paper in headlines like these in the New York Times:
Many of Rathom's reports attacked members of the Wilson administration for failing to recognize and defend against the German efforts, using phrases like "almost criminal negligence" to characterize the federal government's response.
From late in 1917, the Department of Justice made it clear to Rathom that the government was concerned about his claims and criticisms, defaming the government, taking credit for fictitious achievements. Early in 1918, Rathom arranged to publish a series of articles called "Germany's Plots Exposed" in a monthly magazine, The World's Work
. The first article appeared in February, 1918. Just at this point the Department of Justice went on the offensive. First, they threatened to call Rathom before a grand jury to testify about his sources, which would mean revealing how much of what appeared in the Journal was fabricated or based on feeds from the British embassy and other partisans. Rather than testify, Rathom negotiated and on February 12, 1918 signed a lengthy statement in the form of a letter to Attorney General Thomas Watt Gregory
. In essence, he admitted that the bulk of his sensational stories came not from his staff but from British intelligence agents and propaganda operatives. He also pleaded that he had been misquoted or the implications of his remarks misunderstood.
Next the Department of Justice contacted The World's Work
and revealed enough of Rathom's admissions to make that publication reconsider publishing the remainder of Rathom's articles. The World's Work immediately suspended the series and in its place proposed a series called "Fighting German Spies" authored by French Strother, one of its own editors, "by courtesy of the Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice.". An editorial note in The World's Work left much unsaid and softened its impact by saying the suspension was by "mutual consent" of Rathom and the magazine, but it made an implied negative comparison with Rathom's work by saying of Strother's new series: "The facts and documents published in these articles are verified."
Despite the series' suspension, Rathom's reputation hardly suffered. The cancellation of the planned series was a short-term story, not one to compete with headline news. Such a minor incident could not undo the work of the blaring headlines and breathless revelations that had already appeared. Rathom did not lower his voice, but his spectacular claims and charges ended.
In the letter Rathom signed at the Department of Justice, he gave the Attorney General the right to reveal its contents in whole or in part to anyone of his choosing at any time, and the letter remained secret for the moment. The Department of Justice waited almost two years before revealing the letter's contents to the public in the context of the Newport Sex Scandal
.
. In January 1920, the paper took up the cause of Rhode Island's episcopal Bishop James DeWolf Perry
and the local clergy who protested the Navy's failure to clean up the immoral establishments that provided sex and liquor to navy personnel. One action the Navy took, under the direction of Assistant Secretary of the Navy (and future President of the United States) Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a campaign to infiltrate the gathering places of Newport's homosexual community. The operation resulted in the arrests of both military personnel and civilians.
Rathom's paper covered the Newport Sex Scandal trial proceedings daily, often with a critical eye toward the prosecution’s case. When it transpired that the investigators had authorized sailors to entrap their targets and even to engage in sex in the course of their work, Rathom railed against those responsible up the chain of command to Roosevelt and Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels
, an old Rathom foe for his lack of enthusiasm for early entry into the war. Rathom's campaign supported by the clergy resulted in two investigations, one behind closed doors by a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on Naval Affairs and a public one by a naval court of inquiry. That meant more coverage and Rathom was a witness at both.
The battle was not confined to the two investigations and the columns of the Journal. Rathom and Rooseevelt had what the New York Times characterized as a "tart exchange of telegrams" over the issue of who in Washington authorized the improper methods used at Newport. Roosevelt said Rathom's "attack on the navy was disingenuous and dishonorable." Rathom asserted his sole interest was "the protection of the honor of the United States Navy, which officials of the navy have sought to undermine by the most bestial and dishonorable methods known to man."
While Rathom waited months for the outcome of the investigations, events worked to his advantage. In July 1920, Roosevelt resigned his Navy post and accepted the nomination of the Democratic party for Vice President
, making him an even more valuable target for a newspaperman looking to sell papers and keep his name before the public. Rathom waited until just ten days before the election to go public with new and outrageous charges against Roosevelt and another high-profile Navy official, Thomas Mott Osborne
, Commandant of Portsmouth Naval Prison
, former warden of Sing Sing
and the most famous penal reformer of the era. Rathom charged that the Democratic candidate for Vice President had acted improperly while Assistant Secretary of the Navy in releasing sailors convicted on morals charges from Portsmouth Naval Prison and had destroyed documents relevant to those cases.
With the election just days away, events moved quickly. Rathom released his attack through the Republican National Committee on Oct. 24, 1920. The next day Roosevelt countered with denials and called the charges "criminally libelous." His lawyer warned that "every newspaper giving currency to these charges will be held to full responsibility." He asked the U.S. District Attorney in New York Francis G. Caffey to consider a suit as well. Caffey found no grounds for a suit on behalf of the government. Instead, with the authorization of the Attorney General, he released Rathom's two-year-old letter admitting his exaggerations and frauds related to German espionage. The letter now became Rathom's "confession." Rathom naturally defended himself at length., with what success is uncertain.
The Rathom-Roosevelt battle ended without drama. Roosevelt's attorney filed his libel suit on Oct. 28, but never pursued it. Roosevelt's ticket lost badly on Nov. 2. When the Senate subcommittee later censored Roosevelt, Rathom claimed vindication, but the national press took little notice.
, in waring against Bolshevik
infiltration and violence. As an officer of the American Defense Society
, he joined the campaign against President Wilson's proposed League of Nations
, signing a statement of objections that pleaded for America to remain "aloof from all this pandemonium of tribal conflicts." It argued that the League's "impossible doctrines of the self-determination of races" directly contradicted the vision of America as a haven for "all the races of the earth."
Rathom's brand of nativism drew on his passionate isolationism and continued his pro-British stance. At a "patriotic mass meeting" in Carnegie Hall
, he condemned those with divided loyalties. The recently defeated Germans were an easy target, and he chided English immigrants for failing to become citizens, but he spared nothing in denouncing the Irish, especially "that crew of hyphenates who seek to embroil us with Great Britain and who would be willing to see civilization totter and die if their hatred of England could thus be satisfied."
From 1917 to 1922, he was elected annually to serve as a director of the Associated Press
. In 1922 he served as president of the New England Daily Newspapers Association. The governments of Belgium and Italy honored him for his advocacy on behalf of American intervention in World War I.
In August, 1922 he underwent an operation from which he never fully recovered. He died at his home in Providence, Rhode Island on December 11, 1923 and was buried in Swan Point Cemetery
where his grave is unmarked.
Rathom was deeply involved in the Boy Scout movement from its arrival in Rhode Island in 1910. He served as a Council Scout Commissioner for six years and was credited with giving scouting a big boost during its formative stages. Rathom Lodge at Yawgoog Scout Reservation was named for him in 1929.
Rhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
at the height of his career. In the years before World War I, he was a prominent advocate of American participation in the war against Germany. His claims that his newspaper staff uncovered foreign espionage plots were eventually revealed as largely fraudulent, though his reputation as an heroic anti-German crusader endured. He later engaged in a long public dispute with Franklin Delano Roosevelt early in the future president's career. He cut a large figure in the world of journalism and as a conservative spokesman on such issues as anti-Bolshevism
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
and the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
.
Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine described him as a firm believer in the old newspaper saying, "Raise hell and sell papers."
Early years and career in journalism
The man who called himself John Revelstoke Rathom was probably born John Solomon in Melbourne, Australia on July 4, 1868. The story he told of his early years is at many points unverifiable, at others questionable, and at others demonstrably false. An exhaustive review of Rathom's accounts by the staff of the Providence Journal, the paper where he gained national notoriety, documents the problems in the historical record.Rathom did not attend Harrow
Harrow School
Harrow School, commonly known simply as "Harrow", is an English independent school for boys situated in the town of Harrow, in north-west London.. The school is of worldwide renown. There is some evidence that there has been a school on the site since 1243 but the Harrow School we know today was...
in England as he claimed. Nor did he report on the British military campaign in the Sudan in 1886 for the Melbourne Argus
The Argus (Australia)
The Argus was a morning daily newspaper in Melbourne established in 1846 and closed in 1957. Widely known as a conservative newspaper for most of its history, it adopted a left leaning approach from 1949...
. His tales of adventures in China, including service in the Chinese Navy, are likely fictions as well. His claim to have joined the Schwatka Expedition to Alaska in 1878-80 can not be verified. He probably arrived in the U.S. in 1889—he provided various dates—and then worked for short periods at several Canadian and American newspapers on the West Coast.
He joined the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
as a staff correspondent in 1896. Two years later, during the Spanish-American War
Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...
, the Chronicle sent him to Cuba. In his ensuing adventures, all dubious, he was badly wounded, returned to the U.S. with yellow fever or malaria, and escaped from a medical isolation camp. He sailed to South Africa, he later said, to cover the Boer War, but no evidence supports him. His claim that he was twice wounded there is equally suspect. His boast that he counted General Kitchener
Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener
Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener KG, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, ADC, PC , was an Irish-born British Field Marshal and proconsul who won fame for his imperial campaigns and later played a central role in the early part of the First World War, although he died halfway...
as a friend from that time until the general's death in 1916 has been called "moonshine."
By his own account, in his next position as staff correspondent for the Chicago Times-Herald (later the Chicago Record Herald
Chicago Record Herald
The Chicago Record Herald was a newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois from 1901 until 1914. It was the successor to the Chicago Morning Herald, the Chicago Times Herald and the Chicago Record. It was succeeded by the Chicago Herald Examiner....
) he became "one of the best known newspaper men in the country." He covered the 1903 Iroquois Theater Fire
Iroquois Theater Fire
The Iroquois Theatre fire occurred on December 30, 1903, in Chicago, Illinois. It is the deadliest theater fire and the deadliest single-building fire in United States history...
with great distinction. Rathom himself called that story "a classic of deadline journalism."
Rathom became a naturalized American citizen on March 25, 1906 in Chicago. He later claimed that he cherished the congratulatory telegrams he received on that occasion from William McKinley
William McKinley
William McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...
and Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
. McKinley had died more than four and a half years earlier.
Rathom misrepresented his personal life as well. On July 5, 1890, he married Mary Harriet Crockford in Canada. In 1899, he began an affair with Florence Mildred Campbell in San Francisco. His wife returned home to Canada, ending their relationship. Soon Rathom and Campbell were living together as husband and wife, though no record of their marriage has surfaced. The first Mrs. Rathom only sued for divorce in 1908, naming Campbell as co-respondent, and the marriage was dissolved in 1909. For the previous three years Rathom and Campbell were representing themselves to Providence society as husband and wife. Evidence from family correspondence suggests that Campbell began to style herself Mrs. Rathom in 1903. All Rathom's various biographical accounts omitted his first marriage.
In 1906, Rathom applied for work at the Providence Journal
The Providence Journal
The Providence Journal, nicknamed the ProJo, is a daily newspaper serving the metropolitan area of Providence, Rhode Island and is the largest newspaper in Rhode Island. The newspaper, first published in 1829 and the oldest continuously-published daily newspaper in the United States, was purchased...
and won the post of managing editor. In 1912, he became both editor and general manager at the Journal and its afternoon edition, the Evening Bulletin. Upon his death in 1923, Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine reported that the two newspapers were "said to be one of the most money-making magazine combinations in the U. S."
Reporting on German espionage
Rathom campaigned for the U.S. to enter World War I in support of the British. Under his management, the Providence Journal produced a series of exposés of German espionage and propaganda in the U.S. In 2004, that same newspaper reported how much of Rathom's coverage was a fraud: "In truth, The Providence Journal had acquired numerous inside scoops on German activities, mostly from British intelligence sources who used Rathom to plant anti-German stories in the American media."Duped or willingly misled by sources whose information confirmed his own pro-British sympathies, Rathom then exaggerated his own organization's role in uncovering the supposed plots. In speeches at pro-British assemblies, he amplified the Journal's breathless accounts of journalists running undercover operations and thwarting foreign intrigues.
Newspapers across the country reprinted the Providence Journal exclusives, magnifying Rathom's myth that he was directing a cadre of counterspies The national press turned Rathom and the Journal into heroes, naming both the editor and the paper in headlines like these in the New York Times:
- Nov. 13, 1917
- TELLS OF THWARTING GERMAN PLOTTERS
- John R. Rathom Reveals How Reporters Outwitted Teuton Secret Service
- Jan. 20, 1918
- SAYS BAKER KEPT PACIFISTS ON GUARD
- John R. Rathom Tells Genesee Society Secretary [of War] Put Them In Important Posts
Many of Rathom's reports attacked members of the Wilson administration for failing to recognize and defend against the German efforts, using phrases like "almost criminal negligence" to characterize the federal government's response.
From late in 1917, the Department of Justice made it clear to Rathom that the government was concerned about his claims and criticisms, defaming the government, taking credit for fictitious achievements. Early in 1918, Rathom arranged to publish a series of articles called "Germany's Plots Exposed" in a monthly magazine, The World's Work
World's Work
World's Work was a monthly magazine which celebrated the American way of life and its expanded role on the world stage. In 1932 it was purchased by and merged into the journal Review of Reviews. It was founded in 1900 and edited by Walter Hines Page until 1913 when his son Arthur W...
. The first article appeared in February, 1918. Just at this point the Department of Justice went on the offensive. First, they threatened to call Rathom before a grand jury to testify about his sources, which would mean revealing how much of what appeared in the Journal was fabricated or based on feeds from the British embassy and other partisans. Rather than testify, Rathom negotiated and on February 12, 1918 signed a lengthy statement in the form of a letter to Attorney General Thomas Watt Gregory
Thomas Watt Gregory
Thomas Watt Gregory was an American attorney and Cabinet Secretary.-Biography:Born in Crawfordsville, Mississippi, he graduated from The Webb School in Bell Buckle, TN in 1881, Southwestern Presbyterian University in 1883, and was a special student at the University of Virginia...
. In essence, he admitted that the bulk of his sensational stories came not from his staff but from British intelligence agents and propaganda operatives. He also pleaded that he had been misquoted or the implications of his remarks misunderstood.
Next the Department of Justice contacted The World's Work
World's Work
World's Work was a monthly magazine which celebrated the American way of life and its expanded role on the world stage. In 1932 it was purchased by and merged into the journal Review of Reviews. It was founded in 1900 and edited by Walter Hines Page until 1913 when his son Arthur W...
and revealed enough of Rathom's admissions to make that publication reconsider publishing the remainder of Rathom's articles. The World's Work immediately suspended the series and in its place proposed a series called "Fighting German Spies" authored by French Strother, one of its own editors, "by courtesy of the Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice.". An editorial note in The World's Work left much unsaid and softened its impact by saying the suspension was by "mutual consent" of Rathom and the magazine, but it made an implied negative comparison with Rathom's work by saying of Strother's new series: "The facts and documents published in these articles are verified."
Despite the series' suspension, Rathom's reputation hardly suffered. The cancellation of the planned series was a short-term story, not one to compete with headline news. Such a minor incident could not undo the work of the blaring headlines and breathless revelations that had already appeared. Rathom did not lower his voice, but his spectacular claims and charges ended.
In the letter Rathom signed at the Department of Justice, he gave the Attorney General the right to reveal its contents in whole or in part to anyone of his choosing at any time, and the letter remained secret for the moment. The Department of Justice waited almost two years before revealing the letter's contents to the public in the context of the Newport Sex Scandal
Newport Sex Scandal
The Newport sex scandal arose in 1919 from the United States Navy's investigation of illicit sexual behavior on the part of Navy personnel in Newport, Rhode Island. It targeted homosexual contacts between Navy personnel and the civilian population...
.
Reporting on the Newport sex scandal
The Journal covered naval affairs on a regular basis and focused on the local base, Naval Station NewportNaval Station Newport
The Naval Station Newport is a United States Navy base located in the towns of Newport and Middletown, Rhode Island. Naval Station Newport is home to the Naval War College and the Naval Justice School...
. In January 1920, the paper took up the cause of Rhode Island's episcopal Bishop James DeWolf Perry
James DeWolf Perry
James De Wolf Perry was an American Episcopal clergyman and prelate. He was the 7th Bishop of Rhode Island and the 18th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church .-Life:The third of five children, Perry was born in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to the Rev...
and the local clergy who protested the Navy's failure to clean up the immoral establishments that provided sex and liquor to navy personnel. One action the Navy took, under the direction of Assistant Secretary of the Navy (and future President of the United States) Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a campaign to infiltrate the gathering places of Newport's homosexual community. The operation resulted in the arrests of both military personnel and civilians.
Rathom's paper covered the Newport Sex Scandal trial proceedings daily, often with a critical eye toward the prosecution’s case. When it transpired that the investigators had authorized sailors to entrap their targets and even to engage in sex in the course of their work, Rathom railed against those responsible up the chain of command to Roosevelt and Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels
Josephus Daniels
Josephus Daniels was a newspaper editor and publisher from North Carolina who was appointed by United States President Woodrow Wilson to serve as Secretary of the Navy during World War I...
, an old Rathom foe for his lack of enthusiasm for early entry into the war. Rathom's campaign supported by the clergy resulted in two investigations, one behind closed doors by a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on Naval Affairs and a public one by a naval court of inquiry. That meant more coverage and Rathom was a witness at both.
The battle was not confined to the two investigations and the columns of the Journal. Rathom and Rooseevelt had what the New York Times characterized as a "tart exchange of telegrams" over the issue of who in Washington authorized the improper methods used at Newport. Roosevelt said Rathom's "attack on the navy was disingenuous and dishonorable." Rathom asserted his sole interest was "the protection of the honor of the United States Navy, which officials of the navy have sought to undermine by the most bestial and dishonorable methods known to man."
While Rathom waited months for the outcome of the investigations, events worked to his advantage. In July 1920, Roosevelt resigned his Navy post and accepted the nomination of the Democratic party for Vice President
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
, making him an even more valuable target for a newspaperman looking to sell papers and keep his name before the public. Rathom waited until just ten days before the election to go public with new and outrageous charges against Roosevelt and another high-profile Navy official, Thomas Mott Osborne
Thomas Mott Osborne
Thomas Mott Osborne was an American prison administrator, prison reformer, industrialist and New York State political reformer...
, Commandant of Portsmouth Naval Prison
Portsmouth Naval Prison
Portsmouth Naval Prison is a former U.S. Navy and Marine Corps prison on the grounds of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard . The building has the appearance of a castle. The reinforced concrete naval prison was occupied from 1908 until 1974....
, former warden of Sing Sing
Sing Sing
Sing Sing Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison operated by the New York State Department of Correctional Services in the town of Ossining, New York...
and the most famous penal reformer of the era. Rathom charged that the Democratic candidate for Vice President had acted improperly while Assistant Secretary of the Navy in releasing sailors convicted on morals charges from Portsmouth Naval Prison and had destroyed documents relevant to those cases.
With the election just days away, events moved quickly. Rathom released his attack through the Republican National Committee on Oct. 24, 1920. The next day Roosevelt countered with denials and called the charges "criminally libelous." His lawyer warned that "every newspaper giving currency to these charges will be held to full responsibility." He asked the U.S. District Attorney in New York Francis G. Caffey to consider a suit as well. Caffey found no grounds for a suit on behalf of the government. Instead, with the authorization of the Attorney General, he released Rathom's two-year-old letter admitting his exaggerations and frauds related to German espionage. The letter now became Rathom's "confession." Rathom naturally defended himself at length., with what success is uncertain.
The Rathom-Roosevelt battle ended without drama. Roosevelt's attorney filed his libel suit on Oct. 28, but never pursued it. Roosevelt's ticket lost badly on Nov. 2. When the Senate subcommittee later censored Roosevelt, Rathom claimed vindication, but the national press took little notice.
Later years
Rathom continued to maintain a high profile, addressing public meetings and rallies, some patriotic in nature and others aligned with conservative causes. He joined the new Attorney General, A. Mitchell PalmerAlexander Mitchell Palmer
Alexander Mitchell Palmer was Attorney General of the United States from 1919 to 1921. He was nicknamed The Fighting Quaker and he directed the controversial Palmer Raids.-Congressional career:...
, in waring against Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
infiltration and violence. As an officer of the American Defense Society
American Defense Society
The American Defense Society was a nationalist American political group founded in 1915. It advocated American intervention against Germany during World War I and opposition to the Bolsheviks when they came to power in Russia after the October Revolution of 1917.-Formation:Clarence Smedley Thomas,...
, he joined the campaign against President Wilson's proposed League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
, signing a statement of objections that pleaded for America to remain "aloof from all this pandemonium of tribal conflicts." It argued that the League's "impossible doctrines of the self-determination of races" directly contradicted the vision of America as a haven for "all the races of the earth."
Rathom's brand of nativism drew on his passionate isolationism and continued his pro-British stance. At a "patriotic mass meeting" in Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
, he condemned those with divided loyalties. The recently defeated Germans were an easy target, and he chided English immigrants for failing to become citizens, but he spared nothing in denouncing the Irish, especially "that crew of hyphenates who seek to embroil us with Great Britain and who would be willing to see civilization totter and die if their hatred of England could thus be satisfied."
From 1917 to 1922, he was elected annually to serve as a director of the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
. In 1922 he served as president of the New England Daily Newspapers Association. The governments of Belgium and Italy honored him for his advocacy on behalf of American intervention in World War I.
In August, 1922 he underwent an operation from which he never fully recovered. He died at his home in Providence, Rhode Island on December 11, 1923 and was buried in Swan Point Cemetery
Swan Point Cemetery
Swan Point Cemetery is a cemetery located in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. Established in 1846 on a 60 acre plot of land. It has approximately 40,000 interments.- History :...
where his grave is unmarked.
Rathom was deeply involved in the Boy Scout movement from its arrival in Rhode Island in 1910. He served as a Council Scout Commissioner for six years and was credited with giving scouting a big boost during its formative stages. Rathom Lodge at Yawgoog Scout Reservation was named for him in 1929.
Works
- Two Chicago sketches: When the city wakes to life; Lake Michigan in calm and storm (1910)
Sources
- Thomas Williams Bicknell, History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations: Biographical (NY: The American Historical Society, Inc. 1920). This fact-filled biography was based on information provided by Rathom himself.
- Garrrtt D. Byrnes and Charles H. Spilman, The Providence Journal 150 Years (Providence, RI: The Providence Journal Company, 1980)
- Benjamin L. Miller, "The Primacy of the War Effort: Domestic Newspaper Coverage of the October Revolution of 1917" in Brown Journal of History, Spring 2007
- Charles A. Collman, "The Mystery of John Revelstoke Rahom, President Wilson's Confidant," in The Fatherland: Fair Play for Germany and Austria-Hungary, edited by George Sylvester ViereckGeorge Sylvester ViereckGeorge Sylvester Viereck was a German-American poet, writer, and propagandist.-Biography:...
, vol. 3, no. 21, 363-5. A pro-German attack that details Rathom's anti-German stories and charges. - David Pietrusza, 1920: The Year of Six Presidents (NY: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2007)
- TIME: "The Press: John R. Rathom," Dec. 24, 1923, accessed Dec, 10, 2009
- TIME: "The Press: Conscience of New England," July 6, 1953. accessed Dec 10, 2009