Newshawks' Guild

The purpose of the National Guild shall be to preserve the vocational interests of its members and to improve the conditions under which they work by collective bargaining, and to raise the standards of

journalism. . . ."--Article II, Constitution of the American Newspaper Guild.

Many an honest newshawk has joined the Guild during the past few months with the idea that it would somehow increase his pay, cut down his working hours, and, above all, make his job secure. Last week the Guild held its first real convention in St. Paul. The 100-odd delegates, most of whom as individualistic reporters had privately mocked the inanities of other people's conventions they had been sent to cover, behaved much the same as physicians or plumbers or politicians, gathered for an annual meeting. They talked loud about professional standards, damned ''company unions" and even found time to adopt a resolution for the immediate release of Tom Mooney. The most direct attack on the job problem was a recommendation that local Guild negotiations with publishers include such well-recognized union items as the closed shop, the checkoff, dismissal notices, vacations and sick leaves with pay, 40 hr.-five day week, examination of publishers' books, and the right to strike.

A speech of welcome by Minnesota's brawny Governor Olson whipped them up to a fine frenzy of outraged feelings : "... I understand, from a survey made by some of the boys in the Twin Cities belt, the pay of some of the reporters even exceeded that of a section hand. . . . You are above the common herd, although you don't get paid for it. . . . This is a struggle between the wage earners and the dividend collectors. . . . 'I say you have to become militant. . . . You have a great chance to do something famous, so do not muff the ball by getting on too high a plane. As long as the boys downstairs are running the presses you still have a newspaper, so don't get too much above them."

Should the Guild put aside its "white collar complex" and affiliate with the American Federation of Labor, like the shirt-sleeved compositors upstairs and the overalled pressmen down? The convention sidestepped that fundamental question by adopting the proposal of its president, shaggy, drawling Heywood Broun, to postpone discussion for a year. Then the delegates opened their arms in welcome to their newest hero.

He was a lean, thin-lipped, high-strung writer named Louis Burgess, who turned out editorials for $75 a week on Hearst's San Francisco Examiner until last spring, when he was elected chairman of the Guild's newly organized Examiner chapter. Three weeks later the Examiner discharged him "for the sake of economy." Louis Burgess complained to the NRA Regional Labor Board which, amid considerable uproar, heard his case last fortnight. Hearst was represented by his brainy lawyer John Francis Neylan and Clarence Lindner, general manager of the Examiner.

In defense Lawyer Neylan said nothing about "economy," intimated that Burgess had been ousted because his "position and views were such as to render him a negative factor in a confidential relationship." Basically, the Hearst defense challenged the right of NRA "to dictate to a newspaper publisher whom he shall employ to set forth the editorial policy of his newspaper."

The Board last week forwarded the Burgess case without recommendation to the National Labor Board in Washington while its subject went to St. Paul to be cheered to the rafters by the Guild delegates. Louis Burgess told them that Manager Lindner had told him: "If you don't keep your young snots in line I'll give the Guild an awful licking." Warming to that threat, Burgess shouted to the delegates: "You have either got to go with the men or with the publishers, there can be no middle ground for the man in the middle and upper salary brackets. . . . You have to choose between the progressives and the pussyfooters. . . . Are you going to be a worker or a shirker, when the management goes against you? . . ."

Promptly the Guild offered Louis Burgess a $75-per-week job as assistant secretary to promote organization. Someone asked what would be done for other men who lost their jobs because cf Guild activities, but that question was tabled.

For its failure to whip the press associations (AP, UP, INS, Universal) into some sort of code, the Guild delegates concluded that "NRA has been unwilling to function in the face of any power, illusory or real" and that the newspaper division of NRA "is administered from the employer viewpoint." Hitting its full stride in the matter of adopting resolutions, the Guild requested President Roosevelt to remove George Buckley as NRA deputy administrator of the newspaper code on the ground that he "lacks ability, judgment and temperament; is a tool of the publishers."

The convention voted to raise an $8,000 reserve fund from its 8.000 members and to assess each member for unemployment relief. Benefit shows were frowned on as ''a polite form of blackmail." No newspaper publisher could find legitimate fault with the code of professional ethics adopted by the Guild convention: 1) Accuracy; 2) Equality of all men; 3) Fair treatment to persons publicly accused of crime; 4) Protection of confidential news pipelines; 5) No suppression of news for the sake of advertisers, friends or other privileged persons.

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