To give a flavor of how newspapers (anticipating Fox News) willfully downplayed the worst plague in our national history, here are highlights from newspapers in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia on a single day, Friday, October 4, 1918.
Influenza first roared out of control in the U.S. at a military base, Camp Devers, about 35 miles from Boston. By September 22, 20 percent of the 45,000 soldiers at the camp were on sick leave, overwhelming the military hospital. From there, Boston was next.
The war news from Europe (“Haig Breaks Through/Huns in Full Flight”) led the Boston papers on October 4. A Boston Evening Globe correspondent in France reported, “The British troops smashed a large and vital section of the Hindenberg line today.” The Boston Post, boasting a daily circulation of more than 500,000 copies, added that Austria, a major German ally, was ready to sue for peace.
Mournful stories on the front page of both the upmarket two-cent Globe and the penny Post revealed that New England was falling behind its quota in bond subscriptions for the fourth Liberty Loan—the 1918 equivalent of Trump’s obsession with the stock market. As the Post warned in an editorial over the banner and above the war news, “If we here fail to raise our quota until the final day it gives the impression that New England is behind the rest of the country. The place for New England is at the front whether it is buying bonds or responding to the nation’s call for men.”
As for influenza, that was merely the day’s third story, carefully downplayed to modest, one-column, front-page articles in both papers. At least the Post headline was honest in its assessment: “No Gain on the Epidemic in Boston.” And a sober subhead reported, “191 Deaths Yesterday—Situation Remains Grave.” There was, however, a bit of hopeful spin: “Health authorities are encouraged that the increase is but a small one.”
The Globe went further, claiming in a subhead, “Cases Show Decrease.” That upbeat conclusion required aggressive juggling of statistics; the author had compared the day’s deaths to the high point earlier in the week. But a chart that the Globe buried on page nine revealed the underlying truth: Deaths from influenza (now more than 2,000 in a city of 700,000) had increased virtually every day since mid-September.
Signs of denial were everywhere.