I wouldn't blame it on...

just Mr. Hearst....but certainly his other cohorts like Mr. Dow {he got started with that other Halogen Bromine, which lead to Chlorine} and I'd wager Morgan and Rockefeller had a hand, and old Ford wouldn't argue either {as he was trying to displace Mr. Benz's diesel engine that ran on peanut oil}.

By the way the first newspaper from trees was introduced at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 {real name: World's Columbian Exhibition, which ironically, the buildings were made from plaster and hemp to be temporary).

I ask you: What did the world use for TP before this? Funny most early books about paper are simply 'gone'. Paper was such a scarce commodity in US in the 1800s that people recycled their washing lint. WHo would ever risk the effort to grind a whole tree just for pulp...'funny' though its when they started using Chlorine to whiten the paper that the fishing started to go downhill.