A. P.

Just prior to the A. N. P. A. convention in Manhattan (see above), the dignified president of the Associated Press, Publisher Frank Brett Noyes of the dignified Washington Evening Star, submitted to A. P.'s annual meeting last week a novel advertising scheme.

On all sides United Press and International News Service were busy selling their news services, President Noyes pointed out. Though cooperative and not run for profit, A. P. had a certain prestige to maintain. Would it not therefore be well for A. P. to run in each member paper some institutional ads, dignified but catchy, to sell the public on A. P.'s worth & might? And just to make sure that every paper printed the A. P. ads, would it not also be wise for each member-publisher to deposit with A. P. headquarters the price of the requisite space, to be returned when the advertisements actually ran?

Up rose Publisher Basil Brewer of the New Bedford (Mass.) Mercury and Standard-Times, holder of three A. P. franchises, to voice the opposition of those who did not favor the advertising idea. What, asked cynical Publisher Brewer, should he do if by some mischance a laudatory A. P. ad should run on a page near a U. P. or I. N. S. story which scooped the A. P.? Publisher Brewer's countersuggestion was for an assessment to finance a new membership campaign, but President Noyes snubbed this idea by stating that because of the ease with which A. P. members can blackball rivals, few papers outside the A. P.'s membership of 1,380 could be admitted. To this, logical Publisher Brewer replied: "If the saturation point has been reached as completely as Mr. Noyes says, then our advertising problem is fairly simple." Hastily the matter of A. P. institutional promotion was turned over to the directors, who will submit the question to a vote by mail.

In happier circumstances President Noyes proudly introduced to the assembled company his son-in-law, Sir Wilmott Harsant Lewis, Washington correspondent of the London Times, as the "amazing man" who had impartially reported the U. S. to his constituency of literate Britons. With a voice and a sentence structure that have charmed Washington society for years, Sir Wilmott gravely declared:

"The danger which confronts what we call freedom of the Press ... is that the freedom which makes us great and useful may make some among us too great, that individuals may acquire a power which . . . they cannot be prevented from harnessing in the service of personal ambition rather than of the community from which their strength flows. . . . There has never lived, and there will never be born a man wise enough to be entrusted with the irresponsible power over human thought, and the action that follows thought, which ownership of many newspapers conveys in the modern world."

Appalled at these solemn implications, A. P. members brightened when their second speaker, professionally irrepressible Editorialist Henry Louis Mencken of the Baltimore Sunpapers, bounced up, roared : "The first job of a newspaper is to print the news, and nowhere on earth is it done more diligently and more honestly than in this great free republic, the envy and despair of the decadent principalities of Europe. . . . Having recalled some of our triumphs, I hope I'll be forgiven for mentioning our grandest and gaudiest failure. The editorial page ... has been going downhill steadily for 50 years. It enlists good men, and sometimes brilliant men and they work hard and faithfully. On even the worst paper, the editorial page . . . shows more careful writing than any other page, and not infrequently it show's wider information and sounder judgment. Yet how many read it and heed it? Write a scathing editorial on any subject you fancy. Print it on your editorial page.You will get a few letters, and a few of your local bores will call up -- no more. Then take exactly the same editorial and reprint it next day on your first page and with appropriate headlines. If you get less than ten times as many letters, call me up in Baltimore with the charges reversed, and a case of Maryland rye will be at your disposal." Pleased and flattered, A. P.'s member-publishers then proceeded to:

P: Re-elect President Noyes for his 37th year.

P: Grant the 15-year-old prayer of its "little fellows" for more representation. Next year three new directors, representing papers in cities of less than 50,000 population, will be seated on A. P.'s board, increasing it to 18.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.