Mutiny on the Guide

In the 1860s, one Will F. Empey had a perch atop San Francisco's Telegraph Hill, there watched the comings & goings of sailing ships. The Guide, the broadsheet he got out to list each sailing, came to be the bible of West Coast seamen, called itself the oldest shipping paper in the U.S. The wartime ban on publishing ship movements should have been enough to put it out of business.

But Publisher William Charles Empey (Will's son), decided to keep going. Each day through World War II, the Guide appeared as usual--but the back page, where ship movements were formerly listed, was blank. Empey and his staff continued to gather up the forbidden news of ships that touched at San Francisco each day. Then the list was set, one page proof was pulled, and locked in the office safe.

Empey bore this routine patiently, so long as the war was on, and even for a few days after the peace. Then one day he got mad. If Admiral Nimitz could list warships in Tokyo Bay, he said, William Empey could list merchant ships in San Francisco Bay. First Empey asked permission of the Office of Censorship, was told the office had been "abolished." Empey tried the War Shipping Administration, got a flat "no." The Guide-printed the list of ships anyway.

Last week Empey's mutiny ended in complete victory. WSA, confronted with a fait accompli, finally gave its O.K.

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