The Editor-in-Chief

President Harding brought back from Alaska not only an appreciation of Alaskan problems but an admiration for the Alaskan press. He told the Seattle Press Club:

" I found myself involuntarily doffing my hat to the editor and publisher who succeeds in maintaining a daily issue in a town of 800 to 1,200 people, where the circulation maximum cannot exceed 200 to 300 copies.

" Doubtless the Alaskan community is quite as well nourished mentally with its restricted news diet as are some of us who find our nauseated way, if we read our newspapers fully, through elaborated and expatiated stories of crime and scandal and wander through a haze of speculative politics.

" An impressive feature of Alaskan press was its manifest honesty, ofttimes revealing an appealing frankness.

" Let those of us who find pride in association with the making of the American press, the best press in the world, resolve upon a full appraisal of our responsibilities and see that Conscience is maintained as editor-in-chief, and that Accomplishment writes the big ' beats ' which are ever giving the exhilarating thrill to the daily grind."

For the Breakfast Table

Shortly after the murder of Pancho Villa by his enemies, the New York American published a picture of him lying dead, stretched out on a bed in a Parral hospital. There was no trace of malignancy on his features as he lay there, stricken and inanimate. Not many newspapers equal the American in the spirit of enterprise.

"Away With Such Stuff!"

Henry William Massingham from 1907 until a few months ago was editor of The Nation (London). He had risen to that position through a long course in the hard school of practical journalism. He belongs to the radical (that is to say the Socialist) school of British politics -- somewhat more radical even than the Laborites. Last winter the ownership of The Nation changed hands, and Massingham, on account of his opinions, found himself without a position.

Another London editor is John St. Loe Strachey (not to be confused with Giles Lytton Strachey, author of Queen Victoria, etc.) Mr. Strachey is a son of Sir Edward Strachey. He was graduated from Oxford before entering journalism. He has been editor of The Cornhill Magazine (founded by Thackeray), and at present is editor of The Spectator (London). In politics he is a Conservative. There is no danger of his being ousted from his post; he is proprietor as well as editor of his paper.

When Mr. Massingham was deposed from his liberal throne in The Nation, a cry of protest went up from the liberal press -- not only in England but in this country. Mr. Strachey, a Conservative in politics but a liberal in journalism, then did an unusual and highly creditable thing -- he engaged Mr. Massingham to write for The Spectator. There Mr. Massingham now conducts a column which is headed The Other Side. While Mr. Strachey says one thing in his editorial columns, Mr. Massingham upholds the opposite thesis, and all in the same paper.

By this innovation Mr. Strachey deliberately cast down his gauntlet to the tradition that a newspaper must give the public what it wants. The Spectator had built up an audience of conservative people, and now these people are served with both Conservatism and Socialism. It is disconcerting to the constant readers of The Spectator, and some of them protest volubly by letter. Mr. Strachey still braves these protestants, and is called a traitor for his pains.

In one column The Spectator continues to print Strachey conservatism; in another Massingham Socialism; and in a third, the irate letters which exclaim typically : "Away with such stuff from the columns of The Spectator!"

" Waltzing Poodles "

The Chicago Literary Times is edited by Ben Hecht with assistance from Maxwell Boderiheirn. The current issue of this periodical speaks of The New Republic and The Nation (pink politico-literary weeklies published in New York) as " two waltzing poodles bombinating humorlessly."

" Pious Ejaculations "

Throughout the long political war of the League of Nations The New York Times stood staunchly behind the person and the policies of Woodrow Wilson. When Mr. Wilson published his recent article in The Atlantic Monthly (see page 2) the Times remarked: "Sweet reasonableness and pious ejaculations."