Newspaper Week

Last week was newspaper week in Manhattan. But for the first time in 26 years the American Newspaper Publishers Association and allied organizations and the Associated Press met neither together nor in the sedate Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (now being razed). Instead, to Hotel Pennsylvania went the A. N. P. A.; to the Commodore went the A. P. (TIME, April 28).

Work Done. Newsmen know that little is ever accomplished during their perennial Manhattan muster save chit-chat and jollification. Chief business done by the A. P.: the re-election of Publisher Frank Brett Noyes of the Washington Star to be president; the promotion of Associate Publisher John Cowles, 31, of the Des Moines Register and Tribune, from second vice president to first; denial of membership to the Wenatchee, Wash., Sun. Chief item of the formal program: a speech from Secretary of State Henry Lewis Stimson broadcast to the banquet from London. The toast (by custom the only one): to the President of the U. S. and his wife.

General Manager Kent Cooper's address savored of a reply to Editor Oswald Garrison Villard's bitter attack on what he construed to be a shabby popularizing of the A. P. which would cause Melville E. Stone (a founder) to "turn over in his grave." Speaking about a night on a train he had spent with Founder Stone, during which Stone appeared equally at ease before a group of flagmen and a onetime premier of Canada, said General Manager Cooper:

''After the conversation with the former premier had ended, I said to Mr. Stone that what I had witnessed had a direct bearing upon what he knew was my desire as to what the Associated Press news report should be. I wanted it to be at home and welcome in both such circles as he had been welcomed that night. We talked far into the night.

"I never had the slightest idea then that I would ever have the opportunity to bring about the transition in the Associated Press news report that I advocated. I am sure that such a thought had not occurred to him either. As I said good night, he concluded:

" 'Well, if I were a younger man I might try your idea as an experiment.' "

Chief business done by the A. N. P. A.: passing a resolution against a five-day week for publishing personnel; a resolution that each member make his own decision regarding the proposed increased price of Canadian newsprint (TIME, Dec. 23). Discussions: on the competition of radio as a medium of dispensing news; on the evils of censorship laws. Publisher Harry Chandler of the Los Angeles Times was made President of the Association.

Chit-Chat. In hallways and hotelrooms outside the meetings, an outstanding subject for chit-chat was a circulation fight last fortnight between the Philadelphia Record and the Curtis-Martin papers (Public Ledger, Evening Ledger, Inquirer). An article by the Record had told the story thus:

''For the second successive Saturday night, Curtis-Martin Newspapers, Inc. . . . sent an order to Philadelphia newsboys and dealers which said, in effect: 'If you continue to sell Sunday Records, you will not be permitted to sell Sunday Inquirers or Sunday Ledgers.' That was at 7:30 Saturday evening.

"This order was obeyed by eleven dealers in West Philadelphia. But in all other sections of the city it was universally ignored except in the case of Clarence Brown, a blind man. . . . At 9:45 Saturday night, a new order was sent from the Curtis-Martin offices, which said in effect: 'Go ahead, boys, and sell The Record. It's all right now.'

"That mandate was obeyed 100 per cent all over town. Curtis-Martin Newspapers, Inc., was like the determined master with the disobedient pup.

" 'Lie down, Fido,' he commanded.

"Fido stood up.

" 'Stand up, Fido,' shouted the master. 'I WILL be obeyed.' "

In this episode, the profession thought it saw part of an explanation for Curtis-Martin's expensive acquisition in March of the Philadelphia Inquirer, a purchase that left only the Record between Curtis-Martin and monopoly of the morning field. Gloat by Publisher Julius David Stern of the Record:

"Curtis-Martin Newspapers, Inc. . . . paid the Philadelphia Record a notable compliment. . . .

"The Record hereby acknowledges its appreciation of such signal commendation.

"It is the first time in Philadelphia's journalistic history that one newspaper has been singled out as so important that its competitors decided to combine against it. . . . "

Fossils. Notable among the Manhattan Press meetings was the congress of Fossils. Founded at the Centennial Exposition in 1876, the Fossils were originally titled the National Amateur Press Association, were 1,400 strong. As Fossils, this year's was the 27th annual reunion. Members fore-gathered in lower Manhattan at the Fossil Library, where musty walls and showcases are filled with nearly 40,000 amateur newspapers, clippings, photographs, relics. With the advent of the linotype, Fossils regretfully remember, boy-edited journalism gradually passed away. Membership in the organization is gained by presenting a copy of a nonprofessional, personally published paper. Among its membership: Senator George Higgins Moses of New Hampshire, Representative James Montgomery Beck of Pennsylvania, Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis, the late Charles Scribner, Thomas Alva Edison, Josephus Daniels, President Frank Brett Noyes of the A. P., U. S.-born Harry Gordon Selfridge, London store owner.

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