Dramatist to Doghouse

If newspapermen are notoriously an improvident breed, one shining exception is 35-year-old Talcott Williams Powell, son of an Episcopal rector, godson and namesake of the first director of the Pulitzer (Columbia) School of Journalism. Talcott Powell, anxious to make his mark in the world, has kept a performance chart on himself ever since he was a cub reporter on the New York Sun. Graphing his status from year to year, he projected his curve upward to assistant on the city desk of the New York Herald Tribune, upward to the general managership of the Middletown (N. Y.) Times Herald, upward to the New York World-Telegram where he became an expert on municipal government and banking, conducted an expose of veterans' relief irregularities which helped that Scripps-Howard paper win the 1932 Pulitzer Prize, furnished material for a book called Tattered Banners.

Defying all the laws of ballistics, the Powell performance trajectory kept going up & up. He was made assistant to executive Editor Lee Wood of the World-Telegram. Nearly three years ago he became Editor of the Indianapolis Times (circ.: 80,000 ). a pet paper of chain-publisher Roy Howard because it was in Indianapolis, 33 years ago. that he got his first job writing high-school sports. On the Times Editor Powell's flair for dramatizing news soon whipped circulation and profits up 20%. Last year his performance curve reached a new high when he went out to investigate a threatened general strike at U. S. Steel's Gary, Ind. headquarters, was promptly seized by company police, taken to their station, roughly manhandled. Editor Powell became a Scripps-Howard hero overnight when all 24 chainpapers gave his personal drama nationwide publicity, ran his picture under headlines which screamed of "corporate gangsterism" (TIME, July 2, 1934).

Last week ambitious Editor Powell's trajectory described a curve he did not plot--a precipitate and sudden return to zero. Back from a vacation in the Caribbean, he found himself fired without notice, his place taken by a onetime Unitarian minister named Ludwig Denny. To the Times staff, Scripps-Howard's Executive Editor John Sorrells explained that Editor Powell had "resigned." To Editor Powell he explained that he was "temperamentally and philosophically unsuited" for the job. Editor Powell agreed.

Real reason for Editor Powell's consignment to the Scripps-Howard doghouse seemed to be that his latest fight, with some local politicians, had become so personal that it canceled his value to his paper. He had lately made some extraordinary allegations of corruption among the Marion County Democracy. Chief target was a criminal court judge named Frank P. Baker, who was once indicted (but never tried) for election fraud.*

Judge Baker loudly answered Editor Powell from the bench, accusing him of irregularities in his private life. Further charges of a similar nature began appearing in an anonymous sheetlet called The Dart. When The Dart promised to expose the private life of an important local merchant--one of the largest Times advertisers--Editor Powell's nuisance value to the paper grew by leaps & bounds.

Threats of violence were made good when Times Reporter Tipton Shields Blish was set upon in the Marion County Courthouse, hospitalized with his cheekbone broken in 20 places. For that assault police arrested onetime Deputy Prosecuter Peter Anthony Cancilla, whose record includes a conviction for auto theft. Last week Cancilla was convicted of the attack on Newshawk Blish, fined $50 Scripps-Howard executives announced that the Indianapolis Times would pursue its investigation of local corruption further only if "reason for doing so exists." City Editor Harold La Polt, who had actively abetted the Powell crusade was was relegated to the copy desk. Handsome, dramatic-looking ex-editor Powell, who described the exodus as a "collusive divorce with satisfactory alimony," retired to the country, sail boats.

*Practically all Indiana judgeships are elective jobs. Playing politics from the bench is a highly-developed Hoosier art. Until recently no law-school degree has been necessary for admission to the bar, and even to become a Supreme Court Justice in Indiana one needed only two affidavits of good character and a requisite number of votes.

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