Not So Fast

Police moved swiftly today to stamp out . . .

Congress moved swiftly today to . . .

Mayor Himmelfarber moved swiftly . . .

Charles W. Morton, a leisurely, pipe-smoking associate editor of the Atlantic Monthly, was tired of such newspaper shock-talk.

Actually, wrote Morton (in the April Atlantic Monthly Bulletin, a chatty paper he sends to 4,000 editors, contributors and Atlantic friends), "the police, who have been sitting around in a state of indifference to overtime parking, burglaries, reefer peddlers, have finally been obliged to carry on a little simulation of activity . . . [and] such a description of Congressional procedures is almost a case for the postal authorities. As for Mayor Himmelfarber, he has never moved swiftly since crossing the 250-pound mark and to do so would lay him up with a thrombosis in short order."

Morton's advice to newspaper rewrite-men: "Just keep an eye peeled for the word, boys, and be sure you really want to have it that way."

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