Professional Etiquet

A mystery of modern journalism is the Press's concept of news about itself. Confronted with a story about his own business, the newspaper editor seems to throw his news yardstick out the window. Last week offered a clear example. The Press gave columns to the dull doings of State Publishers' Associations convened throughout the land. It reported at length a Columbia University survey showing that most newspaper readers turn first to left-hand pages (for the obvious reason that right-hand pages are usually filled with advertising). The Press dwelt lovingly on a speech by Undersecretary of State Castle praising Washington correspondents. But the Press found no news in a $54,200 libel verdict against William

Randolph Hearst's Boston American. Not a line about the decision appeared in print.

The case against the American dates back three years to a Senate investigation of the Federal Power Commission. Insurgent Senators charged the executive secretary of the Commission, Frank E. Bonner, with partiality to power companies. Also under fire was the Commission's chief clerk, W. Frank Griffith. During the rumpus an elderly file clerk, Mrs. Minnie L. Ward, accused Chief Clerk Griffith of tampering her files. When he refused to leave her office she pelted him with eggs.

Quick to cry out against "the interests," the Hearstpapers filled whole pages with layouts attacking Bonner & Griffith and the Power Commission. Sample headlines: "Angry Woman Throws Eggs and Hits Power Trust"; "Power Trust Keeps Government Employes Good Boys by Prospect of Promoting the Faithful to Good Jobs."

Bonner & Griffith lost their jobs when the Power Commission was reorganized in 1930. They engaged the Washington law firm headed by Frank J. Hogan. high-priced defenders of Bribee Albert B. Fall and Oilman Edward L. Doheny. They sued 14 Hearstpapers for sums ranging for each plaintiff from $100,000 to more than $1,000,000 in Washington. By agreement the Boston American case was tried first, in U. S. District Court. Hearst's general counsel, white-crowned James A. Reed, onetime Senator from Missouri, attended the trial for a few days, was called home by the death of his brother John in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Brightest bit of testimony came from Hearst's star witness, the egg-throwing Mrs. Ward. Under cross-examination by Lawyer John William Guider she admitted referring to Griffith as "lacto bacillus acidopholus--because he would sour the milk of human kindness"; and as a "dirty rotten turtle egg" because someone had told her that was the Chinese expression of supreme contempt.

A jury awarded Bonner $50,000 (half of what he asked); Griffith, $4,200. Next on the list is the Bonner-Griffith case against Hearst's Washington Times.

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