Liar Duffy or Liar Sorenson?

One of the veteran New York ship-news reporters, James Edmund Duffy, for ten years meeting boats for the Telegram, was frantically denounced in connection with his stories on the Vestris disaster. Supported by his paper, corroborated by reporters on other papers, last week he emerged hero of the occasion.

Reporter Duffy was one of those who met Capt. Frederick Sorenson, passenger on the Vestris, when he was brought in with other survivors on the American Shipper. He quoted Capt. Sorenson as saying that Capt. Carey of the lost ship was "criminally negligent," that certain of the crew were "murderers."

Some few days later Capt. Sorenson, appearing in the Department of Commerce investigation, said under oath that Reporter Duffy's article was false, that Reporter Duffy himself was "a dirty, rat-faced liar."

It appears that between the time of his interview with Reporter Duffy and his appearance on the witness stand, Capt. Sorenson had called at the office of the Lamport & Holt Line, asked indemnification for his losses.

The Telegram, calling attention to this, editorially pointed the moral: "Too often the . . . honest reporter has found himself classed with the . . . wilful liar, by persons who hope to evade responsibility for statements made with the full knowledge that they were for publication, by recanting at the first sign of disfavor with their stand."