A. S. N. E. Meeting

Members of the American Society of Newspaper Editors foregathered in Washington last week for their perennial three-day meeting, heard a score of speeches about censorship, pressagentry. their duty in molding public opinion. On the evening of their last day they sat down to dinner with President Hoover, whose remarks, as is customary when a chief executive speaks before the A. S. N. E., were regarded as confidential.

In addition to the honor of dining with their President, the editors took home recollections of at least two pronunciamentos that had made good copy.

Remiss Schools. Editor Sam M. Williams of the St. Paul Dispatch and Pioneer Press submitted the report of a committee on schools of journalism. Bluntly said he: "The schools of journalism themselves are remiss for the unsatisfactory product that is being foisted upon the newspapers. We have found that many of the graduates of the schools of journalism have selected that course as the easier way of getting through college, and in our own offices we have found that only one out of 20 graduates of the school makes good. Judging from its graduates, Editor Williams thought that the University of Missouri was turning out the best newsmen. Headlines Chairman George Woodward Wickersham of the President's Commission on law-enforcement begged the editors to stand firmly behind the Prohibition laws so long as they remained on the statute books. No newsman. Chairman Wickersham exhibited special interest in the task of the green-visored copyreaders who write a newspaper's headlines. "Saving the presence of this distinguished audience," said he, "I sometimes wonder if, after all, the most important of all these [newsmen] is not the man who writes the headlines. . . . After all is said and done, his is the work that reaches every eye. Where one man reads the news column or the editorial comment, a hundred never go beyond the headline, which makes upon their minds impressions that enter into their subconsciousness. and begets an attitude of mind that becomes conviction.

"It would be interesting to gather together the headliners of the leading newspapers of the country and hear them discuss the subject of headlines--the principles on which they are formulated, the ethics of headlines. . . ."

Next day Chairman Wickersham might have observed that the tone of headlines largely reflects the particular tenets of the journal which it adorns. Across the top of an account of his speech carried in the dripping-Wet New York Herald Tribune was blazoned:

WICKERSHAM HOLDS LAW CHANGE MIGHT AID IN TEMPERANCE The more accurate, temperate New York Times headlined:

. THE DRY LAW; OBEY IT, SAYS WICKERSHAM Radio came up for discussion at dinner the last night of the conference. President Frank Ernest. Gannett of Gannett newspapers called radio "another great handmaiden for service in the distribution of some kinds of news rather than as a competitor." President Merlin Hall Aylesworth of National Broadcasting Co. urged that the Press and radio cooperate, assured his hearers that newspapers would never be etherized. But Editor Paul B. Williams of the Utica, N. Y., Press observed: "The newspapers have been suckers in permitting themselves to be used to build up a competitor."

Awards. For his vigilance in discovering Lobbyist Charles L. Eyanson of Connecticut Manufacturers Association in the offices of Senator Hiram Bingham of Connecticut (TIME, Oct. 28), John A. Kennedy of Universal News Service (Hearst) was awarded the Chester D. Pugsley prize of $1,000. Second prize went to Paul R. Mallon of the United Press who disclosed the Senate's secret roll call on the confirmation of onetime Senator Irvine Luther Lenroot of Wisconsin, as a judge in the U. S. Court of Customs & Patent Appeals.

Villard on A. P.

To celebrate its soth annual meeting, held last week in Manhattan, the Associated Press announced that it had transmitted, on March 31. a message twice around the world through 22 of its bureaus and those of the allied Reuters news agency in 2 hr. 5 min. That was cheering news to A. P. men whose meeting this year lasted but a day and whose openly discussed problems were few. routine. Ot greater public interest, however, was a thoroughgoing criticism of their organization just completed in two installments by aggressive Oswald Garrison Villard. onetime (1897-1918) president of the New York Evening Post, in his Nation (pinko weekly). Under the title "The Associated Press," Editor Villard, once on the A. P. board of directors, paid due tribute to some 80,000 newsgatherers affiliated with the A. P. who "despite the relatively poor salaries . . . must be the first into any disease-ridden or any calamity-scourged town."

But Editor Villard was equally forthright in flaying the Association. Excerpts :

"Plainly it [the A. P.] has become one of the most powerful engines for the creation of public opinion in the world. . As it is, the very fact that in the smaller cities and the rural districts it must rely upon its members for accounts of local happenings, places it at the mercy of their reporting. . . .

"Since the newspapers of the great industrial towns of Pennsylvania are usually controlled . . by the large capitalists, it is obvious that in 99 cases out of 100 their reports will represent the view of the employing class. ... To illustrate: In the steel strike of 1919 the Press ot Pittsburgh sided entirely with the employers. . . . Actually in only one issue out of 400 did an article appear which described the scandalous violations of American liberties and of the federal Constitution by local authorities. ... I desire here, however, to stress that there are real and legitimate difficulties in the way of the Associated Press's reporting the troubles of the disfranchised and disadvantaged.

"When it comes to reporting happenings in Washington, and to its relations to the Government of the United States, there is a different story to tell. But here the explanation is not so much the cooperative character of the organization as the false philosophy of the two men who are today the powerful influences in the Associated Press, Adolph S. Ochs [publisher of the New York Times'], its leading director, and Frank B. Noyes [publisher of the Washington Star'), its president. . .

"Today it seems to me that the besetting sin of the Associated Press is its worship of authority. This is in no small measure due to the personal attitude of Messrs. Noyes and Ochs. Mr. Noyes is a resident of the District of Columbia where his newspaper . . . depends for its success upon the army of officeholders. . . . The Star never offends and rarely criticizes the powers that be. It is not doing it an injustice to say that it has one of the most colorless editorial pages in the world; it can become excited over the question of retiring pay for the departmental clerks, and it can, of course, denounce with the best the I. W. W., the Socialists, the Bolsheviks, and the bootleggers. . . . Mr. Noyes is not a fighting man either by temperament or philosophy.

"As for Russia, the Associated Press always knows well where its duty to God and country lies. ... If the revelations of the justified Haitian criticisms of our occupation . . . came as a surprise to the American people it must be in large part due to the fact that the Associated Press has had a Marine officer as its correspondent. . . .

". . . Melville E. Stone [an A. P. founder] must be turning in his grave if he is aware of the kind of sob stuff that is now appearing in the Associated Press reports. . . . Mr. Kent Cooper, the present able general manager . . . has broken with tradition after tradition of the service-- the comic strips are his latest venture. So the Associated Press has long since abandoned its original conception of being a service devoted exclusively to the gathering of news; it is now engaged in the merchandising of purely amusement features. ... I append two of them [human interest stories] which I clipped from the front page of Mr. Noyes's worthy Evening Star. . . .

By the Associated Press

Waukegan, Ill, Jan. 18.--Trixie, George Van Valkenberg's police dog, isn't dead after all. She's sick, but the doctor says she'll be all right.

Several days ago Trixie's master arranged to put her out of her misery via chloroform. Afterwards he took Trixie to the garage to await suitable burial weather.

Yesterday the grave was dug, and Van Valkenberg went to the garage to get Trixie. From her blanket shroud the dog scrambled up and ran to her master. ". . . Here let us recall that in his memoirs, Fifty Years a Journalist, Melville E. Stone declared that 'the Associated Press is writing the real and enduring history of the world, and is not chronicling the trivial episodes, the scandal, and the chit-chat.'!"

*Fortnight ago Dean Walter Williams of Missouri's School of Journalism was made President of the University (TIME, April 14).

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