Down the Bay

Hardly a day passes throughout the year that four or five large passenger liners do not arrive in New York from Southampton, Le Havre, Hamburg, Genoa, Buenos Aires, Bremen. Glasgow, Cherbourg, Villefranche, Oslo, Valparaiso, Havana. And hardly a day passes that these ships do not set down on the Manhattan docks a score or more of passengers whose opinions on gold, Hitler, husbands, Russian food, literature, Disarmament, legs, do not make news of a kind. But at no time during the year is such news so plentiful as during the first ten days of September. Then ocean travel to the U. S. reaches its peak. By last week the Manhattan, the lie de France, the Majestic, the Aqui tania, the Bremen, Enropa, many a lesser ship had landed some 15,000, most of whom were not averse to sharing their views with their stay-at-home countrymen.

Leon Fraser, president of the World Bank for International Settlements, foresaw an early return to the gold standard. . . . William Gibbs McAdoo had always found Upton Sinclair "a fine fellow and one of genuine sincerity . . . but I don't want to commit myself." . . . Sir Ronald Lindsay, British Ambassador, boomed and hawed amiably, sang a snatch of Gilbert & Sullivan. . . . Frank Arthur Vanderlip tossed pearls that he might have sold to the Saturday Evening Post: "My deductions from talk with Minister of Economics Schacht is that things in Germany will be worse before they get better. Their need of cotton is acute. Their need of metal can be staved off for a time." . . . Kermit Roosevelt Jr., 18, found Russia "dirty and buggy." . . . Fannie Hurst thanked God "that we are not a singing country yet." . . . Grand Duchess Marie said she was going to be a commercial photographer but had lost her camera. . . . Peggy Hopkins Joyce raged that she was not about to make Peppy D'Albrew her sixth husband. . . .

New York newspapers brimmed with such stuff last week because of a dozen men who often get up before dawn to "go down the Bay." They are the first outpost of the U. S. Press army, and are known as ship news reporters.

Ship News. The full title is New York Ship News Reporters Association. The organization's only function is to maintain headquarters in a long, squat building at the Battery, the noisy tip of Manhattan Island. The building, hard by the Customs House, is called the Barge Office. There a Western Union printer reports on every floating object that passes Quarantine, eight miles down New York Harbor from the Battery.

The day begins in earnest when the first ship with newsworthy passengers aboard picks up its pilot and starts up Ambrose Channel toward Staten Island. Then the Customs cutter shoves off from the Barge Office to meet her at Quarantine. Along go the privileged newshawks. Before the ship docks they will have an hour and a half to stalk their prey.

Who's Who. Topping the list of ship newsmen by all standards except writing ability is "Skipper" Thomas Walter Williams of the New York Times. "Skipper"' Williams has been going down the Bay for 29 years. Scarcely a ship's officer on the Atlantic does not know him. Beefy, red-faced, sixtyish, "Skipper" Williams sticks to his English-cut clothes and umbrella as he sticks to his British citizenship. Scoops on shipboard interviews are nonexistent because of necessity the reporters pool their efforts and their results. But "Skipper" Williams, never too proud to be a leg man, plods farther along, tracks down friendly captains, pursers, stewards, engineers. Exclusive with him was last year's story of the "sea serpent" sighted from the bridge of the Mauretania and re corded in the ship's log. On days off -- Thursday -- he puts on a wing collar, visits ships in dock.

Second in point of service is "Jimmy" Lanehart, 21 years on the job for Hearst's Evening Journal. His busiest days are when some member of 'the Hearst official or personal family is sailing, and "Jimmy" must bustle around arranging passports, tickets, reservations. He is stocky, be spectacled, affable.

Third old-timer is the World-Telegram's James Edmund Duffy, 16 years in service. Inclined to play a lone hand, Re porter Duffy is often at loggerheads with his rivals. He and the "Skipper" do not speak.

Familiar to readers of Hearst's American is Harry Acton, who writes a slangy column called "On the Gangplank." For run-of-mill news he has a conscientious assistant, John Sampson who, unlike most in his trade, neither drinks nor smokes.

Indispensable is the City News Association man, John Regan, a thoughtful Texan who has a shrewd sense 01 the right question for the right traveler. His job is to read his copious notes to the other newshawks, then telephone them into CNA which in turn serves his stories to client papers (TIME, March 2). Characteristic of ubiquitous City News, Regan lives at Quarantine.

The Herald Tribune's man is Richard ,H. Reagan, who pronounces it Raygan so as not to be confused with CNA's Regan, for whom he was onetime assistant.

Among the shortest on service stripes, but longest on readability is the Sun's John McClain. He writes a column, "On the Sun Deck," in which he takes a long, sophisticated, amused view of the whole giddy scene. The German bar steward, forced to retire on a meagre pension after 44 years, card sharpers, suckers, autograph hunters, pompous people all make copy for him. He interviews Peggy Joyce or Constance Bennett and notes exactly what they, their maids, their hired guards or pressagents do and say. He writes it all in a notebook, with a stub pencil, in a round, schoolboy hand, prints it with grave Scottish humor.

Up the Bay. When these newshawks and their fellows board a liner at Quarantine the publicity man usually marshals them to the purser's office where double-checked lists of notables, with room numbers, are distributed. Famed for brevity are the lists of Purser James Lawler of the Aquitania. Samples: "Mr. Montagu Norman, banker. . . . John D. Rockefeller Jr., prominent resident of Pocantico hills, N. Y. . . . Greta Garbo, en route to a cinema job of work." At the bottom of the list is "G. L.'s" and below that the names of a few young women. That is a tip to photographers. It means "Good Lookers."

Photographers point for faces & figures. Tabloid and Hearstmen go after "cheese-cake"--leg-pictures of sporty females. All keep sharp guard against "lens-lice"-- nonentities who try to force their way into a picture. To get rid of a pest a photographer may have to "French it"--pretend to take a picture, but without a plate in the camera.

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