Leogionnaire Piston

Legionnaire Piston

When mad Paul Gorgulov shot France's President Paul Doumer last May, a group of newsphotographers were witnesses. They had their lenses focussed on the President to snap him as he autographed book for War veterans' benefit. The Picture of the Century--the assassination --occurred at that moment. Bearded Louis Piston, who has been photographing celebrities around Paris for 45 years, dropped his flash, swung his camera overhead, clubbed Assassin Gorgulov with it. Photographer Piston got no picture. Last week it became known that he had been elevated to the Legion of Honor. U. S. newsphotographers are notoriously less polite than Europeans. Ambushed behind furniture, down dark passageways, at turns of staircases, a corps of them on the incoming S. S. Europa in New York Harbor last week flash-gunned for Banker John P. Morgan, camera-shy son of a camera-shy father. They got several fleeting shots, all with Mr. Morgan looking extremely annoyed. When the Daily News's man exploded his flash in Mr. Morgan's face, the latter raised his cane and cried: "You brute!"

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