Letters

Tesreau Field

To THE EDITOR:

During the five years that I broadcast the Dartmouth league baseball games from Hanover, one of the most difficult problems that I encountered was to tell the listeners where I was broadcasting from. To be sure, I was speaking from Hanover, N. H., but hai'dly from Memorial Field, for as I understand it, Memorial Field is properly the permanent football bleachers and the gridiron. The baseball field is a thing apart.

Now that Mr. Baseball of Dartmouth has left us, I would like to make a suggestion, and I hope that you can channel it through the right chain of command. I propose that the baseball park at Dartmouth be christened Tesreau Field in memory of a big fellow who was the embodiment of Dartmouth baseball for a quarter of a century.

Hanover, N. H.

Press Rebuttal

To THE EDITOR:

I have read with special interest the articles in the February issue in which Messrs. Jagger, Liebling and Groat discuss the role of the press with relation to American public opinion.

Mr. Jagger's and Mr. Groat's articles struck me as being seriously thought out pieces by men in the newspaper industry who are presently trying to improve the product from within. Mr. Liebling seems to have gathered up all the criticism he has heard about the press, much of it unwarranted, and lumped it together in his best New Yorker style.

He doesn't know about the press beyond the 15 or 20 largest cities. He laments, rightfully, that it costs a million to ten million dollars to start a daily newspaper in a large city. That is an economic fact for which no one has produced a cure. The costs are high because of the vast outlay necessary for plant and equipment, plus the competitive factors.

But newspapers have been and are being launched in smaller towns. In 1946, according to our figures, 28 daily newspapers were started in small towns. Some of them lived while some older-established newspapers suspended. At any rate, there was a net gain of 14 daily newspapers in 1946 over 1945. In 1945 there were 5 more dailies than in 1944. Total number of daily newspapers in 1946 was 1,763, or more than in any year since 1942. Of that total i,og7 are in so-called "one-newspaper towns," the vast majority of them small towns.

And what's happening in the small towns? Between 1929 and 1946, according to a survey we made in January of this year, 306 daily newspapers passed out of existence. At the same time 145 daily papers were started a net loss of 186 dailies. But in the changing scene, by 1946 there were 40 more towns that had dailies in 1946 than in 1929. During that period 76 cities lost their only daily paper, but 116 cities gained 119 new daily papers. Why?

73.5% of the 306 suspended papers were under 10,000 circulation; 61.7% were under 5,000 circulation; 58 dailies were actually under 1,000 circulation.

In the 76 towns that lost their dailies the average circulation o£ the daily paper was 1,690 in 1929. The average population of those towns was 6,129; 32 of those towns had a declining population from 1930 to 1940.

In contrast, daily circulations in the 116 towns that gained newspapers averaged 4,075. The average population was 8,871.

Those facts are proof that economic factors are controlling in the life and death of a newspaper. There are some metropolitan centers where the advertising potential and the population would support another paper. But in the majority of our newspaper towns there just isn't enough business to be shared profitably by two newspapers.

Mr. Liebling repeats the shop-worn phrase that "nobody believes what they read in the newspapers." He says there is a growing distrust on the part of the readers in the information newspapers carry. We would remind him that daily newspaper circulations increased in 1946 over two and a half million to a figure in excess of 50,900,000 daily, and he will probably retort that readers buy them for the ads and the comics. But a readership study of more than 100 newspapers shows that every page in the paper is getting increased reader attention, including the editorial page. And every newspaper circulation manager will tell you of the jump in demand for copies after the radio has given brief details of a big disaster or an important national story. Readers buy the papers to get more facts than they can get elsewhere. In New York recently, when a truck drivers' strike prevented delivery of newspapers, readers lined up for blocks every day outside of the newspaper offices to get their regular copy. Why would they do that if they haven't any confidence in what they read?

Finally, Mr. Liebling believes "labor unions, citizens' organizations and possibly political parties yet unborn are . going to back daily papers." That may come, and certainly under our free press guarantee any person or group has the right to publish a newspaper. But if those dailies are originated as organs of special groups or special interests and are not intended to be newspapers, as good as or better than existing papers, then we are reverting back 100 years. That would be no improvement over the present press.

New York, N. Y.

Mr. Brown is Editor of Editor and Publisher and has recently been elected also to the position of Vice President of that leading journalof the Fourth Estate.

Likes Opinion Series

To THE EDITOR:

My congratulations to you for the most worthwhile series of articles I have ever seen in a college alumni magazine, "Public Opinion in a Democracy." You made an excellent selection of writers for your newspaper series. The article by A. J. Liebling, my classmate incidentally, is most provocative.

We will all look forward to the series on radio. Your authors are objective, yet specialists who have reached outstanding leadership in their fields.

Toledo, Ohio

A Liberal Problem

To THE EDITOR:

I would like to discuss certain issues raised by Mr. Braden's article, "A Clear Line," appearing in the February issue. This article congratulates certain American Liberals on their recent attempt to separate themselves from joint activity with communists.

Mr. Braden has raised an important point when he says it is not easy to draw a clear line between progressives and communists because both groups make cause against the same things, namely poverty, unemployment, starvation, wars, and other such recurrent phenomena of our present world.

However, Mr. Braden does not realize that if both groups fight for similar causes, the ultimate enemies of both progressives and communists are the same also, namely those elements in the country who benefit from the status quo and who are determined not only to prevent change but to set the clock back.

Therefore, although the progressive may not agree with communist principles or practice, he places both his own principles and his personal safety in jeopardy when he refuses cooperative action with communists against common enemies. Recent history gives abundant confirmation of this.

In Italy, Germany and Japan, reactionary forces eventually succeeded in isolating the communists and in making it criminal to profess communist principles. After exterminating the communists, they then proceeded to attack their other enemies with the same tactics. The liberals, having previously refused joint action with communists, and having tacitly agreed that communism is evil, now found themselves called communists and were persecuted into oblivion by the most savage means.

We are witnessing the preliminary stages of this process in America. The recent persecution of Mr. Lilienthal in the Senate on the ridiculous charges of communism is perhaps the latest example. Mr. Lilienthal's probable confirmation does not negate the fact that these charges were seriously made against him and were taken up at one time or another by important sections of the senate.

Lacking a clear separation from communists, liberals frequently try to dissociate themselves by extremes of emotional criticism. Mr. Braden falls into this trap himself and in his article he repeats two charges frequently found in the newspapers of Mr. William Randolph Hearst, namely, that there is a "communist menace" ami that communists the world over are agents of Moscow. Thus Mr. Braden, a liberal, finds himself aiding the purposes of Mr. Hearst.

In regard to the charge that non-Russian communists are agents of Moscow, one may raise the following point. Communist parties the world over follow the same theories on life and politics. It is reasonable to assume, theref ore, that Russian Marxists and other Marxists will frequently approach similar conclusions concerning events and policies. American scientists are not accused of being foreign agents when they come to conclusions reached also by French or Russian scientists in dealing with similar problems.

A great need of our time is that all progressive forces unite in their struggle to preserve and advance what democracy we have already attained. And when Mr. Braden indulges in this type of anti-communism, he is not only rejecting proven fighters against fascism but is also dividing the liberals among themselves, as shown by the formation of still another liberal organization, The Progressive Citizens of America.

Thus, at a time when we need to rally all progressive strength against the various antidemocratic forces, the practical effect of Mr. Braden's viewpoint is to divide and weaken our efforts. In this period of history liberals need to make a serious political evaluation and criticism of communist principles, but they cannot afford red-baiting and rejection of joint activity with communists for specific ends.

New York, N. Y.