Names Make News

Eight years ago, when the Communist Party petitioned for a place on the ballot in Pennsylvania, the Scripps-Howard Pittsburgh Press had a sly idea. It published the names of petition signers, and waited for the reaction. The Communists howled that the Press was intimidating them. But of 4,800 people whose names were printed, 1,800 complained that they hadn't known what they were signing. Thirty persons were convicted for perjury, conspiracy and obtaining signatures under false pretenses.

Last week the Press was at it again. Editor Edward T. Leech figured that the petitions for Henry Wallace's Progressive Party would make news. He was right: by week's end the Press had published 3,752 names, had a few thousand more to go, and was snowed under with protests and praise. It had a growing file of signers who said there had been some mistake (they thought it was a petition for Palestine partition, or against the city anti-smoke law, or against war; two confessed that "I was drunk at the time").

Wallace party leaders cried "intimidation"--but industriously copied names & addresses out of the Press for a campaign mailing list.

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