John Revelstoke Rathom (1868–1923) was an Australian-born American journalist, editor, and writer based in Rhode Island and employed as the editor of The Providence Journal at the height of his career. In the years before America entered World War I, Rathom assisted British Intelligence at Wellington House as an agent of influence by publishing British propaganda, including false or exaggerated allegations of German war crimes, as articles in The Providence Journal. These articles were widely republished by other American newspapers and helped ensure American entry as an ally of the British Empire in the war against Imperial Germany. Rathom's claims that his newspaper routinely uncovered German espionage plots were also later revealed as fraudulent, although 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 political spokesman advocating Anglophilia, anti-White ethnic sentiment, the Special Relationship, and anti-communism, while denouncing the League of Nations.
Time magazine described him as a firm believer in the old newspaper saying, "Raise hell and sell papers."TIME: "The Press: John R. Rathom," Dec. 24, 1923, accessed Dec, 10, 2009 In 2004, The Providence Journal acknowledged that most 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." Upon his death in 1923, Time magazine reported that Rathom's two newspapers were "said to be one of the most money-making magazine combinations in the U. S."
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.Garrett D. Byrnes and Charles H. Spilman, The Providence Journal 150 Years (Providence, RI: The Providence Journal Company, 1980), 261–301, 469–73. For Rathom's version, see Thomas Williams Bicknell, History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations: Biographical (NY: The American Historical Society, Inc. 1920), 400
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.The Argonaut: "In a Yellow-Fever Camp," Aug. 14,1899 , accessed Dec. 10, 2009. This reports Rathom's letter to the Chronicle recounting his yellow fever experience in Cuba. 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."Byrnes and Spilman, 470
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."Thomas Williams Bicknell, History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations: Biographical (NY: The American Historical Society, Inc. 1920), 400
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.
The Providence Journal 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.
Anti-German propagandist
Rathom campaigned for a Special Relationship and for the U.S. to enter World War I in support of the British Empire. Under his management, The Providence Journal produced a series of exposés of alleged German espionage and propaganda in the U.S.
Duped or willingly misled by British Intelligence sources whose information confirmed his own Anglophilia and Germanophobia, Rathom then exaggerated his own role in uncovering supposed plots. In speeches at pro-British assemblies, he amplified the Journal's articles with breathless accounts of his journalists running undercover operations and thwarting German intrigues.
Newspapers across the United States reprinted Providence Journal exclusives, further magnifying Rathom's myth that he was directing a counterespionage cadre.Providence Journal: "1918: Fiction writer," July 21, 2004 accessed December 10, 2009 The national press turned Rathom and the Journal journalists into national heroes, naming both the editor and the paper in headlines like these in the New York Times:New York Times: "Tells of Thwarting German Plotters," November 13, 1917 , accessed December 11, 2009New York Times: "Says Baker Kept Pacifists on Guard," January 20, 1918 , accessed December 11, 2009
November 13, 1917 TELLS OF THWARTING GERMAN PLOTTERS John R. Rathom Reveals How Reporters Outwitted Teuton Secret Service
January 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 U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's administration for failing to recognize and defend against supposed German espionage efforts, using phrases like "almost criminal negligence" to characterize the federal government's response.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, 84-103 Meanwhile, the real world consequences of Rathom's demogoguery, fake news, and shameless self-promotion were no laughing matter.
In October 1917, Dr. Karl Muck, the internationally renowned conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, was falsely accused by Rathom of knowingly having refused a request to perform "The Star-Spangled Banner" during a recent Classical music concert. Despite having been completely unaware of the request at the time and always ending future concerts with America's national anthem, Theodore Roosevelt and many other US citizens took Rathom's accusations at face value and were furious with Muck, who, along with 26 of the orchestra's musicians, was accordingly arrested and interned at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, until he and his wife agreed to be deported in the summer of 1919.
Also in late 1917, the U.S. Department of Justice made it clear to Rathom that the government was concerned about his claims, criticisms, defaming the President, and taking credit for fictitious counterintelligence 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 subpoena Rathom to testify under oath and name his sources before a grand jury, which would mean facing charges for perjury or contempt of court, or revealing how much of what appeared in the Journal was fabricated by British Intelligence propagandists at Wellington House. Rather than testify, Rathom negotiated and on February 12, 1918, signed a lengthy statement in the form of a letter to U.S. Attorney General Thomas Watt Gregory. In essence, he admitted that the bulk of his sensational stories came not from the investigations of his newspaper staff but from British intelligence agents and propaganda operatives. He also pleaded that he had been misquoted or the implications of his remarks misunderstood.New York Times: "Caffey Reveals Rathom Admissions," October 28, 1920 , accessed December 14, 2009
Next the Department of Justice contacted The World's Work and revealed enough of Rathom's admissions to make that publication reconsider publishing any future Rathom's articles.New York Times: "Admissions Made to Escape Testifying; Department of Justice Reveals Inside Story of the Rathom Statement, October 28, 1920" , accessed December 11, 2009"The Confession of John R. Rathom," The Nation, v. 111, no. 2899 (November 17, 1920) 557-559. 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 they also made a negative comparison with Rathom's work by saying of Strother's series: "The facts and documents published in these articles are verified."New York Times:"World's Work Stops Rathom Disclosures," February 27, 1918 , accessed December 10, 2009Strother's articles were published in book form: Fighting Germany's Spies (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Page and Company, 1919)
Despite the series' suspension, Rathom's reputation did not suffer. The cancellation of the planned series was a short-term story, not one to compete with headline news. Such a minor exposure could not undo the blaring headlines and breathless claims that had already caused American entry into World War I. Rathom did not lower his voice, but his most spectacular claims had 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. 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.
Reporting on the Newport sex scandal