Metropolitan Notes
POSITIONS ON NEW YORK SUN AND OTHER PAPERS HELD BY ALUMNI
IT SEEMS you can't go into any of the newspaper city rooms in New York without bumping into a flock of Dartmouth men who hold down editorial, rewrite, and reportorial positions. Previously in this column we've mentioned all the Dartmouth fellows who work on the Times, the Herald Tribune, and the Hearst publications; now, we have a short report to make on the Hanover influence which prevails down at that staid and reverend evening daily—the one-hundredand-six year old New York Sun.
The Sun has been heckling Tammany mayors and telling Long Island matrons how to plant tulips since the time when the mind of man runneth not, and dozens of metropolitan dailies have come and gone while the Sun has retained its position as the Number One home paper of the biggest city in the nation. We were down at their office the other day (which is on lower Broadway, just far enough from the City Hall to prevent mayors and editors from taking pot-shots at one another), and there ran into Herrick Brown '21, the Sun's Cable Editor. Brown, who for ten years was an outstanding class secretary, began newspaper work shortly after graduation when he joined the staff of the Springfield Republican. From there he went to the Philadelphia Public Ledger for a short period, and then came to the Sun in 1922. He's been there ever since, having progressed from the copy desk to assistant make-up editor, and, nine years ago, to the cable editorship. His present position entails the handling of all foreign dispatches, and Brown says he has his hands pretty full these days, what with news from the pathological nations coming so thick and fast.
With Brown on the Sun are Eddie Dooley '26, Vincent G. ("Pop") Byers '15, and George Rilchie '27. Eddie Dooley, of course, we all know. If we haven't heard him over the radio, we've at least seen his smiling Irish eyes beckoning from the center spread of football programs for us to smoke more Chesterfields. Dooley, after graduation at Hanover, went to Fordham Law School, but by 1927 he'd ended up on the Sun's sports staff, and he's been doing fine work there ever since. Besides his coverage of football, basketball, track and other sporting events, he has supervised the production of a Sun movie short ("A Day with the Sun"), and has written a book (Under the Goal Posts) and numerous magazine articles. During the football season Dooley gives broadcasts at least twice a week; it's always one of the high spots on the radio sports' calendar, and is sponsored by Shell, Chesterfield, or some other large concern.
"Pop" Byers is a newsman from way back. He's a former managing editor of the old New York Evening Post, and a former city editor of the A.P. in New York. He's now doing news editing for the Sun. George Ritchie is a by-line name you'll see in almost any copy of the Sun you pick up. Since he came to the Sun from the Saratoga Springs Saratogian back in 1930, Ritchie has been covering the main news events in general, and heckling New York mayors in particular.
There are probably an equal number of Dartmouth men working on some of the other evening papers about town, and sometime we'll look into them. Just at the moment we think of two recent graduates from Hanover who are making their way on the P.M. sheets: Dave Camerer '37, former star Green linesman who is now doing byjine sports stories for the WorldTelegram; and Mort Berkowitz '37, former national advertising manager of The DailyDartmouth who recently did a stretch as a police reporter for some Toledo, Ohio, paper and who is now drumming up advertising vertising for the New York Post. Mort's father, incidentally, is the Business Manager of the far-flung, Hearstian American Weekly.
From Chicago comes news that a Dartmouth man has just been made managing editor of Chicago's tabloid Daily Times. He is Gail Borden '26, a Social Registerite and the great-grandnephew of the inventor of condensed milk. Borden once taught Shakespeare at the University of Chicago, and once, trying to learn to fly one day, he almost killed himself attempting an Immelmann turn from the ground. Previous to his promotion he was a columnist and dramatic critic for the Daily Times. TimeMagazine, in a recent piece about him, said "Borden specializes in poise, acquired at Dartmouth " That's a simple enough statement, if you don't think about it too long.
Dartmouth men, particularly members of the Class of '35, can't, it seems, keep out of trouble overseas. No sooner do we learn that Bob Sellmer '35 has recovered from his pummeling at the hands of the Lithuanian police to proceed afresh down into Czechoslovakia, than Chuck Brown '35 arrives back in New York with tall tales about how he got chased out of Palestine. Chuck, who formerly headed the Dartmouth debating team, had set off almost a year ago to work his way by boat to Egypt. He got to Egypt, all right, and into Arabia and Palestine, too, but it seems that in Palestine the British Army didn't particularly like his looks. He was making his way by sending back stories and pictures to American magazines, but in the Holy Land he was handicapped because he didn't have an official press pass, and because everyone without an official pass had to get off the streets when the curfew sounded at sundown. While running down an assignment after dark one night with a United Press correspondent, Chuck was seized and searched by the British police, who found picture captions in his pockets which they immediately confiscated. Chuck says maybe they have censorship in Germany, but that he doesn't see how it's any more stringent than that exercised by the British in Palestine. The police were perfectly cordial and polite to him, he states—it was just that they didn't want him around any longer. They immediately called into service two special planes, one to transport Chuck to Cairo, the other to follow along with his luggage. Chuck now rests at his home in Donora, Penn., but he expects soon to start out on a lecture tour.
Two additions were made lately to the ever increasing Dartmouth staff at Young & Rubicam, the high powered ad agency which is scheduled this year to become the biggest in the country. George Byer '36, formerly of Pan-American Airways, joined the Y. & R. Merchandising Department, and Joe Hill '27, experienced newspaper and radio man, was taken on to produce Y. & R.'s radio show "Hobby Lobby." Hill's assistant producer will be Tom Lane '35, who also does radio publicity for Young & Rubicam. A couple of weeks ago, when the agency's "We, the People" show carried an interview with Tom Mooney, Harry Ackerman '35 did the contact work with Mooney on the Coast, and Lane did the show's publicity here in New York.
