Tacoma Tempest

Tacoma, Wash, (population 106,817) has had more than its share of major kidnappings (George Weyerhaeuser in 1935, Charles Mattson in 1936), does not think highly of the way newspapers and radio cover this kind of news. After the Mattson boy was murdered the Tacoma Chamber of Commerce publicly censured reporters and editors for "gross mistakes that many people believe may have prevented the return of this child unharmed" (TIME, Feb. 8, 1937). Last week crime news was worrying Tacomans again, but this time they were afraid they weren't getting enough.

Tacoma's new Police Commissioner Holmes Eastwood announced that publicity given the arrest of a Texas cop-killer had helped his pal escape, handed down an order forbidding any member of his force to talk about or show records on "serious" crimes to Tacoma's two newspapers (Times, News Tribune & Sunday Ledger) and one radio news service (KMO). Reporters who had lolled for years on desks in the detective bureau were chased out as "loiterers."

Eastwood, a lean, soldierly Yorkshireman of 53, who was elected last March after experience as a Liverpool bobby, promised to hand out "legitimate" news at daily conferences. Only other officers authorized to deal with newspapermen were Chief James E. Dew, whose bright red handlebar mustache has been nationally publicized on a Vox Pop radio program, and acting Inspector Sherman Lyons.

Tacoma's newspapers immediately an nounced they would not recognize the "censorship," burgeoned with angry talk about "dictators" and "asinine orders." Citizens called up the papers to report petty accidents, robberies, the finding of an unidentified body. At the end of a quiet week Commissioner Eastwood was still holding firm, personally assured Tacomans no one had been murdered or kidnapped since his order took effect.

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