Vox Vulgi

Just before the Democratic Convention reached Manhattan, a newspaper was born into the metropolitan field. It came forth in the early hours of a sultry June afternoon, and fairly won the title of an evening paper. With Governer Al Smith, William G. McAdoo and "Red Mike" Hylan all in the same town at the moment of its birth, it was perforce born under Democratic auspices. And it was christened The New York Bulletin.

Its owner, Frederick W. Enwright, came forward to read the christening service, or rather the keynote: "In this, the first issue of The New York Bulletin, I am going to make a plain, simple statement of policy so that you may know the kind of newspaper I am going to produce.

"The success of my publications in other cities [Boston and Lynn] has convinced me that a newspaper can find a field in any city if that newspaper loyally serves the plain people. There are two many organs of class, too many highbrow journals concerned only with the vagaries of the rich, and there are too few newspapers telling of the hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows, of the plain people.

"New York, to the Bulletin, will not be a city composed of Wall Street, Fifth Avenue, the gilded palaces along the river, and the harbor choked with private yachts; it will be a city of millions of men and women who are toiling every day, attempting to secure food and shelter, a city of little children who ask only for an opportunity to live and become men and women as good as their fathers and mothers are. . . .

"I propose to make this newspaper the organ of the plain people and I have every confidence that the plain people will work with me and support me. I do not care for any other support."

What is a paper of the plain people, by the plain people, for the plain people? In plain, simple language it is a paper with the largest and blackest and boldest of headlines--a real rival in that respect for Wm. R. Hearst. It is a paper which carries on its front page stories of "Bomb's Deadly Work," "Fleeing Heat, Dies as He Falls Off Roof on East Side," "Divorcee's Navy Romance Revealed in Suit," "Pair Captured After Chase in Narcotic Theft," "General Wood's Kin Three Days in Sea." It carries three snappy pages of sport news. Its foreign news (when it can be found) tells: "Ten Men Killed in Moroccan War," "Boy Worker Locked in Bank" (Eng.), "Priest's Auto in Accident" (Ire.), "Colonies Restless, Empire Shakes" (Eng.), "Ice Prevents Sailing" (Can.). It is vigorous in its editorials:

P: "The Democratic Party can join the Republican outfit in a suicide pact by ignoring the Ku Klux Klan issue. . . ."

P: "The American department store has developed trade and commerce as fully as the old clipper ships ever did. It was the American department store that elevated the buying and selling of merchandise to the dignity of a profession and established standards as high as any other honorable enterprise. . . .

"For the Democratic National Convention, a great theatre in Madison Square Garden has been transformed into a lounging room, equipped with every available device for the relaxation and comfort of the delegates. All this is a gift of a New York department store, R. H. Macy & Co.*"

P: Today, when the sun is hottest, look at the letter carrier who delivers your mail, then visit the City's postoffices where clerks are working in sweltering holes.

"After you have looked upon these men, consider the fact that the President of this Nation has declared formally and positively that the postal workers have very fine positions, that they are paid very liberally and that they should be very well satisfied. . . ."

P: "This is a Democratic newspaper. No publication, intent upon serving the people, could claim any other political preference."