Power & the Press, cont.

It is not fashionable nowadays for newspapers to be connected, financially or by reputation, with public utility companies. Last week Ira Clifton Copley, publisher of 23 chainpapers in Illinois and California, took the trouble to go to Washington and volunteer a statement to the Federal Trade Commission, whose investigation of the methods, rates and propaganda of interstate public utilities continues. A little more than a year ago, Nebraska's thin-lipped Senator George William Norris had charged in open Senate that the Copley papers are financed by "Power-Trust money," and are connected with the interests of Samuel Insull, public utility pope of Chicago. Publisher Copley wanted to place in the Commission's records a statement declaring Senator Norris was "entirely misinformed."

Commissioner Edward Allen McCulloch, presiding, ruled that "witnesses are not permitted to use this place as a forum for debate with any other person."

Publisher Copley's only recourse then was the Press, to "minimize as far as possible" damage "which can never be repaired." Through newsgatherers he challenged Senator Norris to come out from behind Senatorial immunity and repeat his charges. "If he will state this outside the Senate, I will bring him promptly before a Court of Justice." Then, describing himself as an "oldfashioned American citizen," he continued:

"A Senator of the United States or an agency of the government of the United States has no right to injure my reputation or my business by making or publishing reckless and baseless charges affecting me and my business integrity."

Publisher Copley admitted that he was once president and director of Western United Corp., now Insullated, but that he had resigned, sold his interests to buy newspapers at about the same time Mr. Insull acquired large holdings in Western United. He said: "I have no securities whatever in public utilities. There is not a dollar of utility money invested in my newspapers." He did say he still holds 12.500 shares of Western United in trust for his wife, his sister and one W. W. Tracy of Springfield, Ill.