A.N.P.A.

The American Newspaper Publishers Association met in annual convention last week in Manhattan's lush Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. All conventions make reports, pass resolutions, let off steam in general, and the A.N.P.A. meeting was no exception. Last week's meeting, however, was more hot air than steam, more dull ditchwater than racing current. Principal subject of contemplation was Freedom of the Press.

A.N.P.A.'s committee on the subject noted only one development in the past year to which it could point with pride: a Supreme Court decision which gave Alma Lovell, a member of Jehovah's Witnesses, and all other freeborn Americans the right to distribute leaflets without first getting a permit (TIME, April 11). And actually it was the American Civil Liberties Union and the Workers Defense League, rather than the A.N.P.A., who had aided Mrs. Lovell. But the Committee on Freedom of the Press, headed by Colonel Robert Rutherford McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, was willing to take part of the credit. Claiming similarities between the Supreme Court decision and "the briefs and arguments" presented in cases involving newspapers, the committee arrived at the conclusion that the Lovell decision "should silence those people who have been pretending that our long battle to maintain freedom of the press has been a selfish effort to maintain a special privilege."

When it came to viewing with alarm, the publishers found two infringements of liberty to condemn: the attempt of a National Labor Relations Board trial examiner to get accountings of articles in the St. Mary's (Pa.) Press and a magazine, Mill and Factory; the demands of the "Black Committee," now headed by Senator Sherman Minton, to examine private papers.

Having thus balanced their spiritual budget, the publishers turned to the problem of financing a free press, bemoaned the drop in national advertising, made plans to snare more.

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