Singapore Sling

On arriving in Singapore last week on his Pacific tour, New York's Governor Thomas E. Dewey had a complaint to make. In a speech before the bigwig Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, Dewey fished out a clipping from the English-language Singapore Straits-Times. Its front page carried a bannerline story and a four-column photo of the Cicero, Ill riots (TIME, July 23). Complained Dewey: "I am shocked to find that an incident of racial prejudice involving a few hundred people out of a nation of 150 million people is front-page news in Singapore . . ."

Governor Dewey's criticism was blacked out by Singapore's press. Both the Straits-Times and the Standard (also English-language) ignored it. The red-faced editors of both explained that, because the press had not been invited to the dinner, they had jointly agreed not to print the speech, did not learn until later that it criticized them. To make amends, they offered to print Dewey's remarks if he would make them as an "interview." Refusing, Dewey said: "I'm sorry I was caught in your local quarrel."

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