Editors & Pokers

"We have proceeded upon the theory that we should not be afraid to tackle hot pokers because they were hot." So saying, Paul Bellamy, editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, opened last week the 12th annual meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors in the auditorium of Washington's National Press Club.

In normal years an overture such as President Bellamy's would be pure rhetoric. Editors' conventions generally deal with questions no hotter than how to cope with pressagentry, how to invigorate an editorial page. But last week within easy reach of A.S.N.E. were two pokers that were hot indeed. The first was

General Johnson who made a speech, blunt, picturesque, reproachful, conciliatory. Excerpts: "We have been accused of a diabolical desire to impose a censorship on the Press. Considering the articles in opposition to the president's program, we certainly have made the poorest kind of mess, if control of the agencies of publicity was one of our objects. ..." .

At the end of his speech General Johnson barked: "Now, let's turn this into a press conference, let our hair down and talk--shoot every question you want."

Most of the hundred-odd editors assembled (biggest attendance in four years) did not know quite what to do next. Most of them had never been in Washington professionally. Regular correspondents on the sidelines watched with unholy delight while their bosses showed their clumsiness at crossexamination. But among the editors was one old hand at picking up hot pokers held out by government officials. He was Arthur Joseph Sinnott, managing editor of the rich and prosperous Newark Evening News, biggest and best daily in New Jersey.

Managing Editor Sinnott, smart and Scotch, went to work for the News 29 years ago when he was 19. In 1912 he was sent to Washington where he remained until 1925, when the Scudders recalled him to Newark to take complete charge of their newspaper in fact if not in name. He was a crack Washington correspondent, would have made a crack politician. Alert, shrewd, tart, he took no windy nonsense from any Senator. From his desk in the Colorado Building he could gather news direct by telephone from practically every Government official in town except the President.

Back in Washington as an editor, Newshawk Sinnott did not hesitate last week to tell General Johnson: "I was just a bit shocked to get the impression that you feel the Press has not given you a square deal."

General Johnson: I did not mean to give that impression. I think I have been treated pretty gently all things considered.

Editor Sinnott: Our main kick is that you are shooting too fast, it makes us all dizzy. You are trying to get heaven on earth--a code for this and a code for that. . . . But I didn't know the newspaper trade was exactly a sweat shop.

General Johnson: Who said it was?

Editor Sinnott: I think it was from the White House.

General Johnson: ... I will take full responsibility for that. I drafted that--and it was very unfortunate. I am sorry for it. It was maladroitness of expression.

Thus Mr. Sinnott definitely established for the first time that it was General Johnson who put into President Roosevelt's mouth, upon the signing of the newspaper code, the offensive phrase that freedom of the Press did not mean "freedom to work children, or do business in a fire trap, or violate the laws against obscenity, libel and lewdness."

Guild. A second hot poker was offered A.S.N.E. by Reporter Allen Raymond, president of the New York chapter of the Newspaper Guild, newly formed organization of editorial employees. The Guild, which now numbers about 7,000 members, had been meeting stern opposition from some publishers, notably William Randolph Hearst.

In addressing the assembled editors, Reporter Raymond began: "To whom it may concern: There is today and always will be one basic determination of the Guild against which no decent newspaper man can stand--the protection against all tyranny and oppression of the right of this craft to organize. . . ."

Taken aback by Reporter Raymond's challenging tone, the editors juggled the Guild poker back and forth for an entire afternoon. Editor Sinnott was for the Guild so long as it did not "regiment" reporters. Stanley Walker, able city editor of the New York Herald Tribune and Reporter Raymond's boss, was frankly derisive of the Guild as "unprofessional in its philosophy, unsound in its leadership and a menace to the real well-being of reporters." Many an editor expressed fear that the Guild would end up as a trade union. Finally the editors laid the poker aside to cool, with a vote that the directors appoint a committee to form a policy.

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