Political Press

Of the great publishing House of Patterson-McCormick, and of no other, it could be said with certainty last week that it was about to help elect a President of the U. S. Reason: Partner Joseph Medill Patterson, as boss of the House's New York News (circulation: 1,600,000), has given Franklin Roosevelt the wholehearted support of the nation's biggest newspaper; Partner Robert Rutherford McCormick, as boss of the House's Chicago Tribune (circulation: 784,000), has made the nation's second biggest newspaper its most rabid anti-Roosevelt sheet. In a Presidential campaign, a house thus divided against itself cannot fail.

Roosevelt 6 Love Nests. On March 6, 1933 the tabloid News announced that it would support the new President for one year, do what he would. One of the earliest and most enthusiastic subscribers to the NRA newspaper code, Publisher Patterson found when his year of grace was up that Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal had become firmly fixed in his affections. Of his readers' interests he declared: "Roosevelt and the NRA have taken the place of love nests."

Primarily a picture paper, the News's brief, breezy coverage of political news has, in a campaign marked by biased reporting, been comparatively impartial. To compensate for New Deal slanting, Publisher Patterson made a notable contribution to political journalism. Early last summer he announced that, for the remainder of the campaign, the News would daily donate the full page opposite the editorial page to the Republican and Democratic National Committees. Each camp could present whatever it liked in the way of argument, invective, cartoon; the News would print their contributions side by side without altering so much as a word.

This "Presidential Battle Page" first appeared in July. Every day since then

News readers have been treated to the spectacle of crack Republican and Democratic pressagents in-fighting as never before, exchanging curse for curse, sneer for sneer, puff for puff. After a week's trial Publisher Patterson offered his entertaining and educational innovation free to other newspapers through the Chicago Tribune-New York News-Syndicate. The 29 takers which he had last week did not include his syndicate partner in Chicago.

Addressed to a gumchewing audience which has power at the polls if not in the parlor, the News's editorials are simple, colloquial, concrete, hard-hitting. Publisher Patterson writes some himself, furnishes ideas for others to smart Reuben Maury. Sample excerpts:

"In cards, a nine-spot is one which looks like a lot, but doesn't mean much in play. Mr. Landon . . . has been nine-spotting consistently. . . ."

"These promises, all made in one speech, stamp the Republican candidate as either a dumb-bell or a hypocrite. We prefer the hypocrite theory; we don't believe one man could be as dumb as all that."

Observed a critic of the Capitalist press in the radical New Masses last week: "The [New York] Daily News, pro-Roosevelt, pro-NRA, is utterly insincere. The proof? It is owned by the McCormick Chicago Tribune. ..."

House's History, The Red writer's ignorance of Publisher Patterson, of his history and the history of his House, was common, excusable. While "Bertie" McCormick has loudly functioned outside his newspaper and made himself one of the most widely discussed publishers in the land, "Joe" Patterson has let the News be his voice, kept his person in the background.

The Tribune's late great Publisher Joseph Medill had no sons, two daughters. Daughter Katharine married Diplomat Robert S. McCormick, bore Medill, who became a U. S. Senator, and Robert R. McCormick. Daughter Elinor married Editor Robert W. Patterson, bore Joseph and Eleanor Patterson. As rich men's sons, Cousins "Bertie" and "Joe" both went to Groton and Yale. Afterward, both dabbled in Chicago politics but with notably different approaches. Cousin Bertie remained true to his class, performed efficient civic service as an orthodox Republican. Cousin Joe turned social-conscious and, along with several novels and plays, wrote Confessions of a Drone in which he protested the existence of rich parasites like himself. He helped organize a Municipal Ownership League, ran for office in 1909 on the Socialist Ticket. In 1914 he settled down to run the Tribune with Cousin Bertie.

Grandfather Medill left control of the Tribune in a Medill trust, whose beneficiaries are Publisher McCormick and his brother Medill's relict, Ruth Hanna McCormick Simms; Publisher Patterson and his sister Eleanor, the famed "Cissy" Patterson of Hearst's Washington Herald. The two men are the trustee-managers. They bossed the Tribune jointly until 1925 when Partner Patterson moved East to run the New York News, which they had founded six years before. Having experienced a considerable clash of temperaments in their Chicago years, the partner-cousins soon formed a sensible working agreement: Publisher McCormick was to be undisputed boss of the Tribune, Publisher Patterson to be undisputed boss of the News.

Publisher Patterson is grey, wrinkled, friendly, spends much time circulating through his modernistic News building on East 42nd Street, sallying out around the town to find out what the masses are thinking. Publisher McCormick is aloof and domineering, rules his paper from a lofty office in the Gothic Tribune Tower, possesses such an aversion to human contact that he has himself driven to work from his Wheaton estate in a coupe, in order to avoid having to offer a neighbor a lift. Yearly he entertains his employes in the Tribune Tower lobby. Remarked Cousin Joe Patterson at one of these affairs: "Bert certainly likes to crack the whip and watch the serfs march by." Under the Tribune masthead each day has appeared "The Tribune platform for 1936: Turn the Rascals Out." Last week the Tribune editorial columns were devoted to the thesis that Franklin Roosevelt deliberately planned and abetted the banking panic of 1933 in order to set the stage for his long-plotted revolution and dictatorship. In this and in many another attack the Tribune has frankly argued that the President of the U. S. is a traitor to his country, will destroy it if he is returned to power.

Calling itself "The World's Greatest Newspaper.' the Tribune has largely rejected that journalistic canon which pre scribes balanced objectivity in news presentation, with opinion confined to editorial columns. A sample "news'' lead on its front page last week: "Gov. Alf M. Landon tonight brought his great crusade for the preservation of the American form of government into Los Angeles. ..." A prime Tribune headline, over a piece exposing vice in Superior and Hurley, Wis. last fortnight was:

ROOSEVELT AREA IN WISCONSIN IS HOTBED OF VICE

Mrs. Ernest Simpson made the Tribune's front page six times in a week. Same week Franklin Roosevelt made it once. On one day Tribune readers could find nowhere in their paper news of the President of the U. S. Following day appeared a short piece on page 13, reporting that the President had canceled his regular White House press conference, "presumably to avoid embarrassing questions about recent campaign developments."

Sixty-five percent of the Tribune's, employes, according to office gossip, plan to vote for Roosevelt next week.

Saving the Country. Last July the Tribune headlined the birth of an organization with BE A VOLUNTEER IN GREAT FIGHT TO SAVE NATION! and first announced its slogan: "Only 97 days are left to save your country!" Aim was to enroll citizens who would carry the Landon message by ringing doorbells and telephones, singing songs, making street- corner addresses ("Walk up to a crowd and boldly recite your speech!"). Volunteers were urged to end telephone conversations not with "Goodby" but with "Join the Volunteers." Recruiting offices were established on the 17th floor of the Tribune Tower, ballyhoo appeared daily in the Tribune, and by last week the Volunteers claimed 1,000,000 members. That figure was obtained by confusing the Tribune Volunteers, which Publisher McCormick insists is a strictly non-partisan organization, with the "Republican Volunteers for the Winning of the West," organized by Republican national headquarters. Guesses at the membership of the McCormick organization, which has branches in Manhattan, Detroit and Philadelphia, range from 10,000 to 50,000. Rhymed Chicago Times Columnist Gail Borden:

There was a young man from Topeka

Whose campaign grew weaka and weaka,

Till the Volunteers came

And made every old dame

A bellringa, singa or speaka.

True it is that, except for the rabidly New Deal tabloid Times, Chicago has been fed a steady anti-New Deal diet by its press. Only morning alternative to the Tribune is William Randolph Hearst's Herald & Examiner; only full-sized evening alternative to Colonel Frank Knox's News (circulation: 394,000) is Hearst's American. But Publisher Knox, as he speaks through his paper, has been by no means so violent as Vice-Presidential Nominee Knox speaking from the stump. The News has generally front-paged a boondoggle story, exuded confidence in Republican victory, given Republican campaign news considerably more space than Democratic. But for campaign balance and fairness most observers rate it at Chicago's top.

New York City-Chicago's newspaper lineup, 4-to-1 against Roosevelt, is typical of the nation's. That of New York City, the nation's press capital, is not. In the Democratic metropolis, four big papers are for Roosevelt, five against him. Latest and weightiest New York convert to the New Deal is the august Times (circulation: 450,000). True to the Independent Democracy of his late father-in-law, Adolph Ochs, self-effacing young Publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger swung his venerable journal to the Democracy one day last month (TIME, Oct. 12), promptly reasserted its independence by sharply criticizing Franklin Roosevelt on two succes sive days, continuing to ask him such embarrassing questions as what he intends to do about reviving NRA.

Like its 22 sister papers of the lively, crusading Scripps-Howard chain, the New York World-Telegram (circulation: 395,000) has plugged for Franklin Roosevelt with friendly reporting, vigorous if unin spired editorials from the Washington bureau headed by George B. ("Deac") Parker. High point of Scripps-Howard editorializing came last fortnight in a glowing confession of faith which blurted: "Speaking generally, we are for Roosevelt for the same reason we think we would have been for Jefferson or Jackson or Lincoln had we lived in their day." Since providing President Roosevelt with a take-off for his famed "breathing spell" announcement (TIME, Sept. 16, 1935). Scripps-Howard's dapper little Publisher Roy W. Howard has kept out of the political spotlight. Last week he was having a breathing spell from the U. S.

campaign by investigating Far Eastern politics in China.

Noisiest New Deal supporter in Manhattan is the Post (circulation: 121,000), published by that ardent lover of Roosevelt and hater of Hearst, Julius David Stern. On a typical day last week the Post included a front-page editorial shouting that "The bosses of Landon . . . know Landon's whole attempt to fool the American masses is a flop"; a headline, PRO-HITLER STAFF AT HEADQUARTERS OF REPUBLICANS; a column by the New Deal's best syndicated friend, Jay Franklin, predicting a Roosevelt landslide; a cartoon depicting Alf Landon being blindfolded by Samuel Insull.

Through his three Manhattan loud-speakers-morning American (circulation: 320,000), evening Journal (631,000), tabloid Mirror (555,000)-and his 25 other mouthpieces throughout the land, shrill William Randolph Hearst has dinned his hatred of the New Deal day in, day out, furnished Franklin Roosevelt with his noisiest opposition. After almost 40 years the Hearst crusades have grown stale with custom and the Hearst political influence is uniformly discounted by experienced observers. But, win or lose next week, Publisher Hearst himself is sure of a place in the history of the 1936 campaign. It was he who "discovered" Alf Landon, put him on the nation's front page (TIME, Sept. 9, 1935, et seq.). It was he who originated the Red Issue, won a personal attack from the White House (TIME, Sept. 28). Finally, as ultimate testimony to his symbolic stature in the imaginations and passions of the nation, he personally has taken his place along with Spending, Taxes, Regimentation and the American Way, as an issue of the campaign.*

As Election Day approaches, even the bitterest of partisan publishers begins to moderate his attacks, smooth the way for post-election peace overtures. By cable from Great Britain last week Publisher Hearst ordered his newspapers, starting Monday, Oct. 26, to give news of Nominee Roosevelt equal prominence with news of Nominee Landon.

Volunteers. One feature of the arch-Republican New York Herald Tribune'?, (circulation: 317,000) campaign to put Franklin Roosevelt out of the White House has been the exhaustive coverage it has given to the least utterance of Publisher Ogden Reid's cousin. Hoover Secretary of the Treasury Ogden Mills. Another has been the behavior of its distinguished columnists-the lamentation of Mark Sullivan, the oscillation of Dorothy Thompson, the tergiversation of Walter Lippmann. Another has been its feature, ''The Roosevelt Record," a disparaging comparison of Roosevelt promise and performance syndicated to 18 other papers. But the most remarkable contribution to the Herald Tribune's, GOPolemics has been the work of an amateur, Mrs. Preston Davie.

Tall, redhaired, fortyish Mrs. Davie, an international socialite, was a delegate to the Republican convention last June. She went home to organize "Landon Volunteers in Eastern Seaboard States," begin contributing a daily recruiting column to the Herald Tribune. Columnist Davie's original lead was:

"Fiftysix days left before election.

"Fiftysix days left to save the American way of life."

It has varied since only by shortening of the crucial time. "Where did the New Deal come from?" Mrs. Davie has asked. Her answer: "In 1932 Stuart Chase, a Socialist, said to be a former associate of the Alexander Berkman Red radicals, published a book entitled A New Deal."

One day last fortnight Mrs. Davie was in a less militant mood. "There is a blessed picture," wrote she, "of what the White House would be like with Governor Alfred M. Landon and Mrs. Landon in it. The fireside would be a fireside, not a stage setting for crooning marathons.

. . . Mrs. Landon might quite often be found at home with Governor Landon and the children. What an infinitely calm, reassuring and soothing picture this presents!" Provincial Partisans. As they do the year round, the great metropolitan news papers and chains have set the pace for the rest of the nation's daily press during the campaign. Of the lesser chain publishers, peripatetic Paul Block, with seven dailies in his pocket, has pattered in the footsteps of William Randolph Hearst.

Frank E. Gannett of Rochester, N. Y., has permitted each of his 18 papers to main tain its traditional partisanship. All but one are more or less Republican.

Of potent Republican sheets, Moe Annenberg's Philadelphia Inquirer, Harry Chandler's Los Angeles Times, and the Detroit Free Press have been outstanding members of the McCormick school of damnation. The late, loud Frederick G.

Bonfils' Denver Post has been distinguished by its ability to do without an editorial column. A Post banner headline: NEW DEAL ROBS WOMAN OF HALF HER HOMESTEAD.

The San Francisco Chronicle, the Se attle Times and the Portland Oregonian have managed to be strongly pro-Landon without being rabidly anti-Roosevelt. Despite the fact that its Roy Roberts and Lacy Haynes are Alf Landon's closest advisers, the Kansas City Star has gone so far as to criticize mildly the Republican Nominee's tariff views.

Notable fence-sitters are the Cowles family's Des Moines Register and Tribune. Last week the Independent Democratic Cleveland Plain Dealer slid off its fence with a brief editorial declaring: "We prefer Mr. Roosevelt because his philosophy of government is attuned to what we regard as inevitable social and economic trends."

Power of the Press? The campaign's loneliest newspapers have been the three famed Democratic journals which renounced Franklin Roosevelt-the Baltimore Sun, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Omaha World-Herald. Not one has found much solace in 1936 Republicanism.

Stumping in Scranton, Pa. last week, Ambassador to Poland John Cudahy charged the bulk of the press with suppressing news favorable to the New Deal, asserted that "85% of the newspapers north of the Mason & Dixon line are controlled by supporters of the Republican Party."

That an overwhelming majority of U. S. daily newspapers outside the South are pro-Landon is undisputed. Nearest approach to an exact count was a survey by Betty Millard published in the New Masses last week. Having examined the "admitted or effective editorial attitude" of every U. S. newspaper, including the South's, with a circulation of 50,000 or over, she found that those for Landon had a combined circulation of 14,347,000, those for Roosevelt had 6,996,000, those neutral had 1,651,000.

On the old question of the press's power to influence its readers' votes, a significant commentary last week was that, with the press thus pumping for him by more than 2-to-1, Wall Street betting odds against Alf Landon's election were 3-to-1.

*Last week in Manhattan's Hippodrome a People's Committee Against Hearst solemnly held "public trial" of the old publisher, pronounced sentence of boycott on his newspapers, magazines, radio stations, cinemas. The slogan: "Don't read Hearst, don't see Hearst, don't hear Hearst."

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