Oregonicm to OWI

The big, bass-mouthed man in the neat blue suit was bewildered and nervous. Few men had ever taken a new Washington job under more awkward circumstances. He had become chief of OWI's domestic branch, succeeding Gardner ("Mike") Cowles Jr., Des Moines publisher, just after the House of Representatives had torpedoed the bureau by withholding its funds. The Senate had not yet acted, but there was stormy weather ahead for OWI. Edwin Palmer ("Ep") Hoyt had a right to be nervous.

He strode into the big third floor room in Washington's Social Security Building for his first press conference, stood silent a moment while flash bulbs popped, then reached for a prepared manuscript and began to read. It was a statement positive in tone, full of "will do" and "won't do." But in the light of the House action, it sounded throughout, to the newsmen, like "I had intended to do" and "it had been my hope not to do. . . ." Read Hoyt:

"I accepted this appointment . . . be cause I am convinced that [the OWI domestic branch's] operations are absolutely vital. ...[I took this job] with the clear understanding that I would have full authority. . . . The domestic branch of OWI will devote all its energies to giving the American people . . . full and accurate information about the war. . . . This office will not be concerned with 'propagandizing.' . . ."

OWI's domestic branch, he went on, "has three major functions: 1) to obtain the release of the fullest possible news from the military fronts and on the military progress of the war; 2) to obtain and correlate the news of the operations of all the [Government] agencies concerned with the war; 3) to make all the news available to the public, as quickly and clearly as possible. . . ." These sounded exactly like the noble objectives OWI Director Elmer Davis had started out with.

One newsman asked about Ep Hoyt's politics. Hoyt's answer: "Lifelong Republican." The brittle, 15-minute conference broke up.

The newsmen could not yet tell how successful Ep Hoyt will be in his new job (or even whether he had one); many a man successful in private business has sunk in bureaucracy's quicksands. But they did know that Ep Hoyt, the up-from-the-ranks editor and publisher of the popular Portland Oregonian is patient, smart, has a rare knack of making and keeping friends. They felt sure that, given half a chance, he could click.

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