"Be a News Photographer"

John Jay Price is a name unfamiliar to metropolitan news editors. But say "Jack Price" to an editor and his face will light up. He knows Jack Price as one of the most famed news photographers in the East, for 15 years ace of the late great New York World. Since 1927 Jack Price has prospered as a free lance, now occupies a neat studio in a midtown Manhattan skyscraper. There last week, about to pop with excitement, he pored over galley proofs of a book he has written, to be published next month. It is called Be A News Photographer* The book is based on Author Price's theory that, with the new types of compact, lightweight, high-speed cameras, every reporter may now be his own photographer. And should be. The old World once issued handy cameras to all its newshawks (who soon lost them). So did the Journal. The practice is now coming back on the Gannett chain papers (notably in Albany and Elmira, N. Y.). whose editors are still searching for an "ideal foolproof camera."

Author Price takes pains to emphasize that there will always be an abundance of expert work requiring skilled cameramen. But a camera-equipped newshawk is prepared to snap the unexpected. Also he has a distinct advantage of entree. A hostile subject who has thawed to a reporter's interview may let him snap a picture, although he would freeze again at sight of a photographer's tripod and plate-box. In many cases the cameraman, boldly marked with the badge of his trade, is barred at gates where the newsman, with camera concealed, may saunter in. As Jack Price says: "Nowadays a reporter can still carry his cane and have a camera tucked in his pocket." The adventures of news photographers can be fully as thrilling as those of newshawks. Ingenuity comes quite as much into play. Jack Price thinks the most ingenious stunt he ever saw was ''Crazy Johnny" O'Brien's, at a Mineola murder trial. Cameras were barred from the courtroom. The knot of photographers waiting outside was amazed one day to see O'Brien suddenly dash off at top speed down the street. "He's just crazy." they said. He came walking back, looking foolish. Next day he did the same thing. On the third day the verdict was reached. Johnny O'Brien started running again. This time the other camera men learned his reason. He had slipped into the courtroom, touched off his flashlight, whipped out his plate, left the camera and dashed for the railroad station. He had timed to a second how long it would take him to catch the last car of a train pulling out for town. Photographer Price, full of energy and not short on "brass," had done things as good in his day. His book touches on some of them, but by no means all. One day he and a man named Duff teamed to get a ship news shot of the elder Morgan, notoriously hostile to cameramen. Duff hid behind a ventilator. Jack Price, as decoy, waited until Banker Morgan, pacing the deck, came alongside the ventilator. Then he leaped into Morgan's path, focussing his camera. Irate Banker Morgan brandished his cane, while Confederate Duff, unseen, sniped a perfect shot, later shared with Price.

The Elder Rockefeller was supposed to be just as difficult as the Elder Morgan. On Mr. Rockefeller's 82nd birthday Jack Price went to Tarrytown with the usual brigade of photographers. Shrewdly he left them, found Mr. Rockefeller at a nearby church which he had lately dedicated. As a guard started to hustle Price away, Mr. Rockefeller interfered. Writes Author Price:

"I explained to him my mission, complimenting him at the same time on his birthday and upon his newly endowed church. Mr. Rockefeller looked at me for a few moments, then said suddenly: 'Have you been to church?' 'No sir, I have not,' I replied. 'Very well then,' he said, linking his arm through mine and smiling. 'Let us be friends! You come to church with me and I will let you take your pictures afterward.' "

Jack Price let one of his friends take a picture of the Elder Rockefeller handshaking one of his traditional enemies, a cameraman! The Washington Times remembers the story of Price and Arlington National Cemetery. It was during President Taft's administration. A general was being buried. In those days cameras were barred from the Cemetery. Price stole in to the grounds before dawn, secreted himself in a tree overlooking the grave. There he perched until the cortege entered, led by the President. The casket had been lowered (while Price clicked away unnoticed) when the tree limb snapped into the grave. Down crashed Jack Price & camera. A squad of Marines whisked him to the sentry house at the gate of the Cemetery, held him for further orders. As the funeral procession emerged. Price saw President Taft eyeing him sidewise. The President's eyes twinkled. Price was released. Thereafter photographers were admitted to Arlington.

Lippmann Abridged

Readers of Walter Lippmann in the arch-Republican New York Herald Tribune beheld with surprise one day last week that his "Today & Tomorrow" article was only about one-half its usual length. Mr. Lippmann was flaying President Hoover sharply, accusing him of begging Pacific Coast votes in return for R. F. C. aid advanced to the West. Excerpt:*

"The money which Mr. Hoover says he provided and for which he asks his reward is the money of the whole American people. It was obtained on the understanding that it would be administered in a nonpartisan spirit, and on that basis it was voted by both parties. I know no reason to doubt that it has been administered in a nonpartisan spirit. But I cannot understand how Mr. Hoover has justified to his conscience his personal appeal for votes because of that money. . . ."

Below the article appeared a note by the newspaper's editor calling attention to the fact that R. F. C. loans are made not by the President but by a board which is predominantly Democratic.

It was not remarkable that Pundit Lippmann should flay the Herald Tribune's candidate. The paper engaged him, as a wise observer and able writer, with the understanding that he should enjoy freedom of expression. Month ago he plumped publicly for Roosevelt. But seldom had he been so sharp-spoken and the obvious deletions, plus the editor's note, started a rumor through Manhattan newsrooms that Walter Lippmann had been censored by Publisher & Mrs. Ogden Reid. Newsmen recalled the case of Colyumist Heywood Broun who was fired from the late World, when Lippmann was editor, for writing too bitterly about the Sacco-Vanzetti case.

When Writer Lippmann heard the rumor he promptly exploded it. He had ordered the deletions, he said, after he had arrived home on Long Island because "I felt on reflection that the language was too strong and that it was open to misconstruction." As soon as the article was trimmed, telegraph wires buzzed with instructions to the hundred-odd newspapers which buy the piece from the Herald Tribune Syndicate, and which had already received the original version. But not all clients received word in time to catch early editions. In some, Writer Lippmann's "strong" language appeared: "But how effectively could [the emergency relief program] be carried on if Mr. Hoover were reelected? . . . Let no one deceive himself. Mr. Hoover has destroyed the possibility of any co-operation with the next Congress . . . because he has broken the agreement which was at the base of the whole program. He has made a partisan thing out of a nonpartisan grant of power. . . . It was a dangerous experiment to grant these powers and only the most scrupulous respect for the trust which they implied could have justified their continuation."

*Guide Publishing Co., New York. $2. *Copyright by Walter Lippmann.

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