Letter from the East

As a television sponsor, Xerox Corp. has made an exemplary name for itself through its support of such admirable programs as Alistair Cooke's America and Kenneth Clark's Civilisation. Last winter Xerox decided that nothing would be more natural than to copy the process. It sponsored "the first Xerox special in print" -Pulitzer prize-winner Harrison E. Salisbury's Travels through America, a 23-page personal essay that appeared in the February issue of Esquire, sandwiched between two low-key Xerox ads that explained the innovation. Last week the first Xerox special somewhat embarrassingly turned out to be the last, and all because the company ran up against a reader on Allen Cove in Maine.

The reader who took on the sponsor was not exactly run-of-the-mill. He was E. B. White, who was long the master of The New Yorker's Notes and Comment column. At 76, White no longer writes very much, but he can still work up a dander when he spies a fox lurking in the thicket. When he first heard about Xerox's plans to sponsor the Salisbury article, he let fly a letter to the nearby Ellsworth American. "This, it would seem to me, is not only a new idea in publishing," wrote White, "it charts a clear course for the erosion of the free press in America."

White did not doubt that Salisbury's Travels were paved with good intentions. Xerox first broached the idea to Esquire of underwriting a substantial article because, says Xerox Vice President David J. Curtin, "We felt we'd like to help a magazine do something special, which might be tough for them to do on their own." Esquire chose both the subject and the writer, and Xerox approved the selection. Under the terms of the sponsorship agreement, Xerox paid Salisbury a handsome $40,000 for the six months' work he put into the essay, as well as $15,000 in expenses; in addition, the company took out $115,000 worth of ads.

There was also an important codicil: Xerox would have no editorial control over the essay. If the company had disapproved of it, Esquire would have been free to publish it anyway -and keep the money. Says Salisbury: "I saw no ethical impediments to doing the piece. After all, big corporations like Xerox and Texaco commission operas and other cultural enterprises. Meanwhile, the poor magazines have been dwindling away over the years, and along with them the employment of writers." For its part, Esquire was equally unfazed by the unusual arrangement.

Inviting Evil. Still, after the Salisbury article appeared, Xerox was sufficiently troubled by White's cavil that it asked him to elaborate on the dangers he saw in such sponsorship. The company was rewarded with a classical delineation of the reasons that might well have given pause to everyone involved. When a large corporation or rich individual underwrites a magazine article, replied White, the ownership of the magazine is diminished: "It was as though Esquire had gone on relief, was accepting its first welfare payment, and was not its own man any more ... Buying and selling space in the news columns could become a serious disease of the press. If it reached epidemic proportions, it could destroy the press. I don't want IBM or the National Rifle Association providing me with a spectacular when I open my paper; I want to read what the editor and publisher have managed to dig up on their own -and paid for out of the till." Concluded White: "The funded article is not in itself evil, but it is the beginning of evil, and it is an invitation to evil."

There are times when a hard man is good to find -and Xerox, to its credit, recognized that this was one of them. On reflection, the company bowed to White's strictures and canceled two other Salisbury-type projects. Said Xerox's Curtin: "I feel warm inside because big old Xerox had the grace to listen to a great man of letters." The Ellsworth American, please copy.

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