How did William Randolph Hearst campaign against big businesses?
The Hearsts were ex-Missouri Democrats who struck it rich in the California gold rush. Actually, the founder of the family fortune, George Hearst, failed going after the gold but succeeded beyond anyones wildest expectations when the prize was silver. Hearst had been involved in lead mining in Missouri, and silver often is found alongside lead. Miners in the Nevada Comstock started out after gold and kept running into a blue clay which, as far as they were concerned, was just in the way. So, they angrily threw it out. George Hearst recognized it as extremely rich silver ore and started collecting it. The others thought he was crazy. But, he finally collected enough to take twenty mules full back to San Francisco, and for it, the mint traded him 80,000 silver dollars! George Hearst won a newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, in a card game in 1887. He personally had no use for it, but his only son, Willie, had just been thrown out of Harvard for sending one of his professors a chamber
