Lindberghiana

Police Commissioner Mulrooney of New York was surrounded by newshawks one day last week. The Commissioner was trying to quash the report that Col. Lindbergh had been hoaxed, had paid the $50,000 ransom to some interloper. His point was that the payee had identified himself by a code token identical with that contained in the original ransom note found in the baby's nursery.

"But," argued the newshawks, "did no one else see that ransom note? Could no one else have known the code?"

With great reluctance Commissioner Mulrooney admitted officially for the first time: "I know that many persons have seen that note."

This admission was taken by newsmen as confirmation of a persistent report: that a complete description of the ransom note and its code marks lies jealously guarded in the morgues of all Hearst-papers. It is an old story now that within a day or two of the kidnapping, a staff member of Hearst's Chicago American telephoned to Hopewell, N. J., got the New Jersey police on the wire, and posed as the Chicago Chief of Police, got a minute description of the ransom note. But the Lindbergh attorney, Col. Breckinridge, got wind of the scoop, successfully argued Hearstmen into secrecy.

Scoop-- Revealed last week were the facts behind the only published scoop in seven weeks of this biggest story in modern journalism: the discovery that a ransom had been paid. On Saturday morning, April 9, 27-year-old Henry Gwinnell Coit, city staff writer for the Newark Evening News, was cashing a check at his bank. The teller seemed excited. "Did you hear about the list?" he asked Coit.

"What list?"

"A list of the serial numbers of $5, $10, and $20 bills we're to look out for, sent by the Federal Treasury to every bank in the country."

"Anything in it?"

"We totaled them out of curiosity. They add up to $50,000."

Quick-fired questions at the cashier strengthened Coit's suspicion that the $50,000 was the Lindbergh ransom money. Managing Editor Arthur Sinnott got in touch with Hopewell, where the story was confirmed with "deep disappointment," in time to get a flying edition of the Newark Evening News on the streets by 12:30 p. m.

Shortly afterward Col. Lindbergh called to ask that the story be played down. Newark's News played it down. The Associated Press-- withheld the story at Col. Lindbergh's request--as did other news services, and all Manhattan dailies except the tabloid Daily News, ever a gad-fly to Col. Lindbergh. When he learned of the Daily News's action, Col. Lindbergh issued a general release and all later Sunday editions had the story. The Treasury numbers on the ransom money occupied more than 18 half-columns in the New York Times. "An amazing typographical spectacle," Editor & Publisher called it.

Hush. A phase of the case where the New York Daily News did cooperate with Col. Lindbergh was revealed last week by Editor & Publisher. Weeks before news of the famed "Jafsie" negotiations leaked out among other newspapers, both The Bronx Home Neivs and the Daily News knew the whole story. In deference to Col. Lindbergh The Bronx Home News withheld its beat. The Daily News was asked to do likewise, in a most remarkable way: Col. Breckinridge and J. P. Morgan asked Thomas Lament to ask Col. Robert McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune and partner of Publisher Joseph Medill Patterson of the News. When Captain Patterson learned of the request, he said the matter was entirely up to his managing editor, Frank Hause. The story never came out.

*Associated Press last week corrected TIME'S report of the A. P. handling of the ransom money flash (TIME, April 18): "Your story charges that we picked this up and transmitted it to the nation. That statement is absolutely false. Colonel Lindbergh called the Associated Press first, and asked our advice as to what might be done. We volunteered to prevent the transmission of this story over our wires to points outside of New York, and we killed the story on the New York City circuit. It was after Colonel Lindbergh talked with us and agreed upon a policy that he called the other agencies. . . ."

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