Pulitzer Prizes

As the daughter of the late Joseph Medill Patterson, Alicia Patterson revered the journalistic talent that made his New York Daily News (circ. 2,109,601) the biggest U.S. paper. But she did not always agree with him about newspapering. Although her father warned her that Long Island would never "take to" a tabloid daily, she went ahead anyway and started Newsday, made it a spectacular success. This week Alicia Patterson, 47, won a journalistic award that has always escaped the Daily News. The Pulitzer Prize board gave Newsday its top prize for the most ""disinterested and meritorious public service rendered by a U.S. newspaper" during 1953.

Newsday (circ. 190,151) won the prize for its campaign exposing corruption and graft at New York's trotting tracks (TIME, Oct. 19). Four years ago, Newsday Managing Editor Alan Hathway, an alumnus of the New York tabloid News, started hammering at the Roosevelt Raceway, about half a mile from Newsday's plant, charged that Long Island's Building Trades Boss (A.F.L.) William De Koning was shaking down builders and track employees for close to $1,000,000 a year. Governor Thomas E. Dewey appointed a special commission to clean up the raceways, and last month Labor Leader De Koning was sentenced to a year to a year and a half in Sing Sing for extortion.

Other Pulitzer awards in journalism for 1953 ($1,000 each):

P:For local reporting under "deadline pressure," the Vicksburg (Miss.) Sunday Post-Herald (circ. 8,800). It won for its coverage of a tornado that struck Vicksburg (pop. 27,948) last December, killed 39, left 1,200 homeless and destroyed communications. Despite the destruction, City Editor Charles Faulk, 39, with a staff of only five reporters, quickly got out an edition of the paper with up-to-the-minute news and pictures of the entire disaster.

P: For local reporting where time was not a factor and the "initiative and resourcefulness" of the reporter led to "constructive" results, the prize went to Kansas City Star Reporter Alvin S. McCoy, 50. His stories and reportorial work led to the resignation under fire of Charles Wesley Roberts as Republican national chairman (TIME, March 30, 1953). ^1 For editorial writing, Boston Herald Editorial Writer Don Murray, 29. He wrote a series of editorials criticizing the Defense Department's "new look." P: For international reporting, Scripps-Howard Correspondent Jim G. Lucas, 39, who is now in Southeast Asia covering the Indo-China war. He won the prize for "frontline human-interest reporting" of the Korean war.

P: For national reporting, Richard Wilson, 48, Washington bureau chief for the Cowles Newspapers (Minneapolis Star and Tribune, Des Moines Register and Tribune). He revealed the contents of the FBI report to the White House on Harry Dexter White before FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover made it public to a Senate committee (TIME, Nov. 30). P: For cartooning, the Washington Post and Times-Herald's biting, Fair Dealing Herbert L. Block ("Herblock"). He won his first Pulitzer in 1942. His second is for his cartoon on Stalin's death (see cut), CJ For news photography, Amateur Photographer Mrs. Walter M. Schau, first woman to win the prize. She was driving from her home in San Anselmo (Calif.), when she saw a truck about to fall from a bridge, managed to snap two remarkable pictures. One showed the driver scrambling up a rope to safety (TIME, May 15, 1953), while the other, a few seconds later, showed the cab of the truck crashing 70 ft. below.

Other Pulitzer awards in music and letters ($500 each):

P: John Patrick for his play The Teahouse of the August Moon. CJ Brigadier General Charles A. Lindbergh for his autobiography The Spirit of St. Louis.

P:Ex-Newsman and Nation Editor Bruce Catton for a Stillness at Appomattox, the third volume in his history of the Army of the Potomac (first two: Mr. Lincoln's Army, Glory Road).

P: Poet Theodore Roethke, University of Washington English professor, for his volume of poems, The Waking. CJ Composer Quincy Porter for his Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra.

The Pulitzer board gave no award for a novel.

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