A. P. in Court

One of the most important legal cases in the history of the American press--is the Associated Press a monopoly?--finally reached court last week. On the expediting court bench sat three of the country's top-rank jurists, all of the U. S. Circuit Court: 1) learned Judge Learned Hand, 71, a remarkable stylist, liberal, a truly brilliant judge; 2) his cousin, Augustus Noble Hand, 73, singularly gifted with horse sense; 3) Thomas Walter Swan, 65, longtime (1916-37) dean of Yale's law school.

Before this trio of legal eagles in Manhattan, the Government brought its dreaded anti-trust suit against A. P. There were no witnesses. It was a motion for summary judgment. For five hours and 15 minutes, the three judges listened patiently to the year's stiffest legal arguing.

Before the hearing A. P.'s loudest claim had been that the suit threatened freedom of the press. At last week's hearing A. P. soft-pedaled this issue. But the Government pressed it. Said one of its attorneys: "The First Amendment was intended to keep the press free . . . not for private newspaper enterprise alone, but for the reading public. If the press is to be truly untrammelled, it must be free from restraints imposed upon it by any combination."

Private Club. The Government was curt and clear about the restraints it saw in A. P.'s setup. It asked the court to order A. P. 1) to remove the bylaw which prohibits member papers from giving their own local news to anyone but A. P. ; 2) to annul the bylaws restricting membership in A.P.; 3) to cancel the contract which gives A. P. and Canadian Press the exclusive right to each other's news; 4) to get rid of Wide World Photos, whose picture service is available only to A. P. members.

These practices have made A. P. a sort of private club, the Government maintained; they add up to a "flat boycott" against non A. P. papers; membership restrictions are so strict (majority vote of the members and payment of a stiff fee) that it takes an average six years to get an A. P. franchise. Moreover, the fee (10% of the assessments that A. P. members in the locality have paid since 1900) is so stiff that a new member in the New York City morning field (unless he could buy an A. P. franchise from a bankrupt paper) would have to pay the other A. P. members $800,000 to get the service. This was the richest example the Government could offer; others might not show so great a disparity.

Exclusive News. A. P. denied almost everything the Government said. Of course, A. P. news is exclusive, it argued; if everyone could have it, no one would value it. If A. P. had to serve everyone, it would become, in effect, a public utility, subject to Government regulation. That would defeat its purpose, to produce an accurate, unbiased news report, because A. P. would lose control over its members.

There was irony in the one thing on which the Government and A. P. agreed: that A. P. was certainly the best news service in the business (although the Government saw this as a handicap to newspapers without A. P. service). A. P., though flattered, was not stupid; its lawyers played down this superiority, heartily extolled the merits of its smaller rival, United Press. Any paper with U. P. service could get along nicely, cooed A. P.

Welcome Bouquet. U. P. thought so too. It claimed that only 33 of its 2,008 newspaper and radio subscribers take U.P. because they can't get A. P. Many (over 300) take both services. Therefore, argued U. P., if A. P. were made available to every one, U. P. would stand to lose no more than a handful of subscribers.

The special Court's verdict will not be final. If A. P. loses, an appeal to the Supreme Court is sure.

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