Sequelae

Echoes of the income tax publicity uproar (TIME, Nov. 3), though scarce heard by the public ear, continued audible in courts of law and in lobbies of the Congress.

In Kansas City, a fortnight ago, in U. S. v. the Kansas City Journal-Post, the Missouri Supreme Court upheld the newspaper's right to publish amounts paid by income taxpayers.

In Washington, a fortnight ago, the District of Columbia Supreme Court granted the petition of David H. Blair, internal revenue collector, to dismiss a suit for injunction against him brought by one Gorham Hubbard, Boston taxpayer, to prevent the publication of the figure of his (Hubbard's) income tax.

In Baltimore, last week, The Baltimore Post, demurred to its indictment for illegal practice in publishing tax figures. Whilom Secretary of War Newton D. Baker went from his Cleveland law offices to join with W. Calvin Chestnut, Baltimore Attorney, in arguing that "to publish" (language of the Revenue Act of 1924) means "freely to print and widely to circulate," that to deny this freedom is to violate Amendment I of the Constitution.

In Manhattan, last week, counsel for the New York Herald-Tribune employed much the same arguments used by Mr. Baker and his colleague, to win acquittal for their clients before Judge John C. Knox and a Federal Grand Jury. Whereupon the prosecution (i. e., the Government), in order finally to test the law, had the Herald-Tribune reindicted, using as grounds the tax figures of individuals other than those named in the first indictment. The re-indictment was quashed perfunctorily by Judge Knox, as the prosecution intended it should be; and the Government was free to appeal this second case to the U. S. Supreme Court.

The net result of so much judicial procedure, all carried on in most amicable and cooperative spirit between the Government and the newspapers, was that, so far as the courts could determine, the equivocally worded Revenue Act of 1924 provided for the public printing of income tax payments.

The ultimate determination by the Supreme Court will be expedited and will probably coincide with the result thus far arrived at.

At Claridge's

In London, last week, a certain acidity was apparent in The Morning Post when a luncheon was given at Claridge's by Mrs. William Randolph Hearst. Said the Post: "What wonderful things luncheons at fashionable restaurants are!" Mrs. Hearst was referred to as the wife of "the great American newspaper magnate who attacked England so bitterly at the time of England's danger. ... It might be thought that no Englishman would ever desire to have anything to do with him again."

But, "so unchristian a spirit could never survive such a luncheon; and besides, now that the danger is over, Hearst is almost friendly once more. We may be certain that no thought of the injuries and insults poured upon their country by the Hearst press interfered with the refined enjoyments of that exquisite meal."

The Post failed to mention that Ambassador and Mrs. Kellogg were among the guests. Of the Earl of Balfour's presence it took cognizance thus: "The veteran apostle of philosophic doubt was there--doubting, we feel sure, no longer." Lloyd George's presence seemed to the Post appropriate, in that Mr. Lloyd George was "an honored employe of the Hearst press."

At Sherry's

In Manhattan, Louis Sherry's restaurant is--well, Sherry's, something the same as Claridge's in London. Sables and silks go in to Sherry's; plenty of blue blood, too, and real diamonds. The carpets are lush and silent underfoot, the waiters obsequious, the linen snowy, the crystal sparkling.

There is nothing crude about Sherry's. One could never conceive of anything crude ever happening there.

Last week, as sables and silks departed from Sherry's, sables and silks were invited, ever so politely by a young person near the door, to "dress a doll for a poor child." Sweet little dolls were exhibited, nude in their paste-board boxes. "For a poor child," thought kind sables and silks, just recently so well fed. What a nice idea! Yes, yes, of course.

So it came about that some good dames who "will never let a Hearst paper come into the house," found themselves, upon reaching home and examining their doll boxes, about to work for the New York American's Christmas and Relief Fund, Inc. So also it was that the poor of Manhattan thanked the American for more, much more, than the American was giving.

"Larger, Better"

The New York Evening Post, ancient landmark of the U. S. publishing panorama, approached the end of its first year under the mastery of Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis. It had been a year such as the Post never knew before--a year of the grand manner.

In olden times--when Alexander Hamilton penned its editorials, when William Cullen Bryant purified its diction, and later, when E. L. Godkin and Carl Schurz were its brilliant "fighting" editors--the Post had a grand manner more than once.

But of a different order is the grand manner of Mr. Curtis. He has ransacked the ends of the world to fill the Post with daily tidings from afar. He has fattened and sleekened every page, stinting nothing to give his creature an air of brisk, full-blooded opulence and suavity. Where the Times drones and expatiates with the pensiveness of a scholarly, grey bearded statistician; where the Herald-Tribune stands brightly but carefully pat like a promising young member of the Stock Exchange; where the World, like a self-made man with brains, ideals and a deep vein of cynicism, cloaks terse and forceful thought beneath a lively flow of front-page vulgarity; where the Sun, heavy but active, moves with a great gloom upon its brow--among these the Post seeks to stand as the incarnation of corporeal perfection and easy omniscience, relying upon its presence and a certain lofty but ingratiating manner of address to win public plaudits.

And does the public applaud the Post? In its ascetic pre-Curtis days, its daily circulation was a meagre 32,506. This, while the fattening process began and the price went up to five cents, fell off to an average of 31,291 for six months ending Oct. 1. Of late, they say, Mr. Curtis' motto that "nothing succeeds like success" has begun to justify itself. Since October, the figure has jumped to 38,000 and the Post "has utterly outgrown its present quarters." It has bought a city lot. It will build a spacious new mansion. It "will not keep its readers and its advertisers waiting a single moment longer than it must for the larger and better product it will be able to create in its own specially planned building."

Conjugation

Publisher Hearst had the honor last week to announce the marriage of his Hearst's International and his Cosmopolitan magazines. Consummation of the union was set for early in the new year. The International, a feminist bride, will insist for a time on International-Cosmopolitan as the family name, but will later succumb to custom and be of one name as well as one flesh with the Cosmopolitan.

Many wondered at the conjugation of this flashy couple who are so close of kin. Persons who buy both the International and the Cosmopolitan do so primarily for the fiction and illustrations and these are almost identical in the two magazines. Asked to distinguish a difference, few readers point out that the Cosmopolitan's are of slightly greater fame and salary than the International's--Philip Gibbs, H. C. Witwer, A. S. M. Hutchinson, Meredith Nicholson, for example, as compared with Tom Gill, Walter De Leon, Edwin Balmer and George Weston. Even this faint distinction is confused by the fact that many of these authors write for both magazines, and that what they write is invariably the same--"high-life" escapades, "low-life" escapades, apartment-house romances, love at first sight --all manner of Tillie-the-Toiler skits in the popular, fiction-factory formulae, excellent literary trash and "what the public wants."

The artists of the two staffs are not all the same men but they are the same sort of men. An endless parade of enchanting creatures appears on the covers -- Harrison Fisher girls, W. T. Benda girls; an endless company of interestingly dressed and undressed lovers and haters pant, clutch, embrace, struggle, strike, stare, pose or sit pensive and forlorn.

But there is a difference, just the same. The International, which was started in 1901 by a bishop of the Re-formed Episcopal Church and entitled Current Encyclopedia, later The World Today, was acquired by Publisher Hearst in 1911. In 1912, it became Hearst's International, still devoted to current events but with an admixture of fiction. The current events element was gradually replaced by ax-grinding articles--now for Matrimony, now for Health, now for the White Collar Ideal, now for Judaism. In this it took over the crusading functions of the Cosmopolitan (founded in 1886 and bought by Mr. Hearst in 1905), which in 1912 became purely a fiction magazine. Evidently the crusading was felt to be not the strongest selling feature of Hearst's International, for, though ax-grinding continued, bolstered by "human interest" features ranging in tenor from the earnest optimism of the American Magazine to the flatulent body-worship of the Macfadden publications, the emphasis was more than ever on fiction. Last year, Norman Hapgood, widely known through his associations with Collier's and Harper's, was put in charge as editor; but, in spite of this, the International has not had the steady growth of its pure-fiction relative, the Cosmopolitan, At the coming union, it appears as though ax-grinding would be bred out completely.

Like all Hearst pulps, these two have vast circulations. In June, 1924, they were: Cosmopolitan, 1,126,767; Hearst's International, 439,655. Publisher Hearst's reasons for lumping these can only be guessed at. Perhaps he thinks the Cosmopolitan can swell, bigger and brighter, to another million or so. Perhaps he is disgusted with the International and its paltry 439,655 paid subscribers. Perhaps he himself is weary of cheap "human interest" articles in this particular portion of his vast press and feels he can best serve the Nation by concentrating on pure, unabashed fiction.

Gridiron

It was a distinguished company, just the right number for distinction, 400, that sat down to dinner at the Gridiron Club (Washington, D. C.) for the annual disrespectfulnesses of the Washington newspaper correspondents. President Coolidge was led to a seat next the Club's president, William E. Brigham. Most of the President's Cabinet was scattered through the throng, all regardless of rank. Ambassadors passed the salt to Senators. Senators hobnobbed over their soup with the men who write, and who sometimes rip, them up from day to day. Bankers and ballplayers, Bandmaster Sousa, Governors Smith of New York and Cox of Massachusetts, publishers aplenty--all in the flesh, eating and laughing and talking.

All in the flesh--guests who had been to other Gridiron dinners looked about to make note of who was really there. There would be other dignitaries, not in the flesh, coming later. The newspaper "boys" cut up no end.

Came a great crashing in the wings of a stage just in front of the head table. President Brigham shot the cue: "Mr. Brown, what is that awful noise?"

Chairman Brown of the entertainment committee brightened: "Don't be alarmed, that is merely the silent vote for Silent Cal."

It was the first line of the show, so all who heard laughed heartily and the "gags"* came fast and furious.

There was a political auction, as advertised by sandwich men before dinner in the reception room. "The greatest collection of electoral remnants in history" was offered by a hoarse man in swallow-tailed grandeur and a sagging red waistcoat. "The proceeds . . . will be used for charity. They will be donated to the Democratic National Committee."

Chairman Clem Shaver (a fake one) bought a map of the Confederate States "to figure the electoral votes of John W. Davis. . . . But this map doesn't show Kentucky!" cried the mummer.

"It's a new map. Kentucky was Democratic, B.C."

"Whaddyemean, B.C?"

"Before Coolidge" (Roars).

"So this map is A.D.?"

"Yes. After Davis" (Roars).

When the "Electoral College Glee Club" had lined up and cleared its throats, it sang of John W. Davis' trip to Europe (now under weigh), to the tune of Bring Back My Bonnie.

'Tis too late, now the campaign is over,

To sail to a far distant shore;

So far as concerns the election,

He'd better have gone there before.

To Boola Boola they sang:

Mr. Coolidge went up to Vermont upon one sunny day;

The movies took his picture as he

pitched the new-mown hay;

He passed the sap to Henry Ford and called him his old pal,

He made a speech by radio, yet they called him Silent Cal.

The duet went:

(Slouch hat--W. J.)

Oh, we are the Bryan brothers

We've been in ev'ry race.

(Skull cap--C. W.)

We ran three times for President,

Then we ran for second place.

(Slouch)

But we ain't gonna run no mo', no mo';

We ain't gonna run no mo'.

(Skull)

When the votes are cast, we're always last--

(Slouch and Skull)

So we ain't gonna run no mo'.

The third verse went:

You've had your chance to elect us;

But this is our last fight;

For thirty years you've turned us down

And Darwin may be right.

It's no use tryin' to elect a Bryan;

So we ain't gonna to run no mo'.

*Gag--slang for "witticism" or "quip." Slang synonyms: "wisecrack," "nifty."