"We Boys"

". . . But we wouldn't dream of publishing that story for worlds, Mrs. Park Lane, because everyone on the staff thinks so much of you and your charming daughter. By the way, her debut will take place next month, will it not? We might be able to use her photograph as a frontispiece for that issue. . . . Now about this stock subscription. Some of the very smartest people in town have invested in our magazine. The shares are $100 each. Of course, if you don't wish to take as much as 25 shares. . . ."

Old, perhaps as old as the Press itself, is the foregoing strategy, known in its cruder manifestations as the "we boys" racket ("We boys on the staff want to give you the breaks. . . ."). Twenty-five years ago William Travers Jerome, famed crusading District Attorney of New York, tried unsuccessfully to make it a reason for putting Town Topics, oldtime "society" gossip sheet, out of existence. Last week the editors of Town Topics (still going strong as a 25-c- biweekly) and of the younger and more venomous Tatler & American Sketch (50-c- monthly) were in the offices of New York State's Attorney General, each protesting that his magazine employed no fraudulent tactics in selling stock.

On complaints of Manhattan socialites whose names were withheld, offices of both magazines were raided on the same afternoon. At Town Topics (founded 1878 by the brother of its notorious long-time publisher, the late Col. William D'Alton Mann) detectives found themselves stopped by a blank wall and a peephole window marked "Subscriptions" through which a girl clerk told them no one was in. The raiders forced a door, found Editor Augustus Ralph Keller, a lean, sharp-featured, red-nosed little man with gold-rimmed spectacles. He was already awaiting trial on a charge of criminal libel brought by William Brown, vice president of Radio Corp. of America, to whom he allegedly tried to sell stock in Town Topics before printing an insinuating story (TIME, Feb. 2). With Editor Keller in the office were Robert A. Davison, president of American Social Registry Inc.* which publishes the magazine, a staff writer and three women clerks.

At the Tatler offices subpoenas were issued to Editor John C. Schemm, a sleek, slender gentleman with slicked black hair who wears a smock at work; and Charles Covell of the "Society Service Bureau." ostensibly a publicity service.

Editors of both magazines were emphatic in stating that their publications had made no money for several years. Yet some $250,000 worth of Tatler stock had been purchased by "investors" in the past five years; and about 200 socialite names appeared as Town Topics stockholders.

Town Topics is brazen indeed in its comments--fawning or abusive--concern-ing socialites or would-be socialites. But it is Tatler (merged last year with Club Fellow & Washington Mirror--TIME. April 21, 1930) which publishes the ruthless list of debutante ratings whose author. "Audacious," was revealed last week as Editor Schemm. The grades in the list are "A," "B," "C," "D" and a dreadful, all-inclusive "E-Z." Specimen comments from the current issue:

PHILADELPHIA Grade "A"

To the manor born

Rich in ancestry Grade "C"

Pushing hard and fast

Merely the average

Snooty and snobbish--why?

The fleet's in Grade "D"

Bunting went ahunting Just ambitious--that's all.

Names in the "EZ" classification are listed without comment. According to the Attorney General, one girl was promptly listed "EZ" after her father had declined to become an "investor"' in Tatler.

Editor Schemm revealed that he alone graded the debutantes on the basis of their family histories, that "it isn't the girl that is being graded, it is the family. . . ."

Q.--What is meant by society so far as your paper and your contracts and your purposes are concerned?

Editor Schemm--People who have for several generations lived a clean, decent life.

Q.--Doesn't something about accomplishments of members of the family have something to do with that?

Editor Schemm--Yes, if a man has for-bears who happen to have been a Governor or had achieved in a military way, that is all taken into consideration.

Close on the heels of the society magazines go solicitors for pseudo press associations, another variation of the "we boys" racket. Instead of selling stock they sell "memberships" or a "service."' A man or woman who buys stock in a society sheet speedily becomes known as a "tap." If other salesmen who follow are successful it is understood that the original "tapper" gets a commission.

The salesmen represent themselves as offering a polite publicity service. They suggest that "our newspapers" want a biographical sketch and a good picture of the subject; that they will see that the family's name is frequently and favorably mentioned; that--by gentle implication-- nothing unfavorable regarding any member (client, customer) will appear in print.

*Not to be confused with long-accepted Social Register, published by the Social Register Association.

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