Soapbox, 1946

The more she pondered the fate of her native Tyrol, the more Miss Frankie Miller worried. Finally she sat down and wrote Britain's Foreign Minister a letter about it. Instead of mailing the letter, she took it to the New York Times, paid $693 to have it printed last week as an ad. Said Frankie Miller to Ernie Bevin: "Humbly I beg your Excellency to have the [liberation] of South Tyrol brought before the UNO. ... I also challenge the zone occupation of Austria."

By last week hundreds of special pleaders had caught onto the fact that their money was as good as any department store's--and many a newspaper saw itself being turned into a soapbox. The news columns were easily policed, for publicity could still go into the wastebasket. But where should the line be drawn on such editorial advertising?

Some samples of recent "paid editorials" in the Manhattan press: "Please . . . let me make my Zippers," by "Bewildered Small Businessman" David Silberman (TIME, Feb. 4); "Let's stop the atomic war NOW," by Americans United for World Government; "Let's stop feeding inflation," by the N.A.M.; "An appeal to the peoples of the world," by the Rollins College Conference on World Government; the Zionists' "Palestine ... or they perish," the Arabs' retort, "Arabs want peace"; a blurb for Birobidjan, Russia's-"Pearl of the Far East" for Jews; "An open letter to Congress," by Sponsors of Government Action against Cancer; "Shall we help the Communists to crucify Christian Spain?" by the Missouri Knights of Columbus.

Pressagent Russell Birdwell got in early with a stop-the-atom-bomb-test editorial for which the Military Order of the Purple Heart bought the space, giving Copywriter Birdwell a mammoth byline. Headline: WHERE ARE WE GOING? Hapless newspaper and magazine executives only wished they knew.

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