The Eternal Apprentice

The ballroom of London's Dorchester Hotel was crammed with stuffed beavers, scarlet-coated Mounties, feathered Indians, and R.A.F. trumpeters announcing the roast beef. Moist-eyed press lords bawled Happy Birthday to You and Land of Hope and Glory. All of which seemed only proper for a party given by Roy Thomson, the Canadian-born press lord who owns more newspapers than anyone else, for Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, another Canadian-born press lord, who long since established himself as one of journalism's greats.

Burdened though he may be by sciatica, gout, and the cumulative fatigue of the 85 years he had come to celebrate, the feisty little guest of honor stole the show. So forcefully did he define his profession and the practices and crusades of his own turbulent lifetime, that even men who had long opposed him stood to cheer.

"It is quite true that I am old bones," he began in that gravel voice before which many an editor learned to quail. "My legs are very weak, but I still have something in the way of a head. I am still headstrong, and self-willed at that. I will try to make you a speech. Many shrewd observers will say that I have not had any pattern or continuous theme in my long life. Certainly I have. But I have never been a successful leader. I have always been an apprentice.

"In learning about journalism I had to learn about journalists. No other profession is so heavily criticized. No other is preached at so much and told so often to mend its ways. Some of the loudest critics have a very simple code for us. It is this. 'Don't ever print anything about me that I wouldn't want people to read.'

"I am not much impressed by all the talk about standards and codes. The code of a good journalist should be written on his heart. First, he must be true to himself. The man who is not true to himself is no journalist. He must show courage, independence and initiative. He must be no respecter of persons but able to deal with the highest and the lowest on the same basis, which is regard for the public interest and a determination to get at the facts. I take more pride in my experience as a journalist than in any other experience I had in a long and varied life."

The Beaver saved his best line for his peroration. Just before he left the room, he said: "It is time for me to become an apprentice once more. I have not settled in which direction. But somewhere, some time soon."

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