The Press: House Dick

City Editor Gene Lowall of the Denver Post (circ. 237,061) collects crimes with the passion that other men lavish on postage stamps and Ming vases. A onetime crime reporter himself, he likes to swap stories with Denver cops, spends his spare hours reading and writing whodunits, calls his reporters “my agents.” In 2½ years on the city desk, Lowall has done his best to make Publisher Palmer Hoyt’s Post read like an up-to-date version of the old Police Gazette. To charges that he overplays crime, Lowall answers: “No matter how cheap a crime story may be, it is still better than any other type of story.”

Last week Crime Collector Lowall got what he called a “dream assignment.” Ep Hoyt moved in Oldtimer (59) James Hale as city editor and moved 44-year-old Gene Lowall over to the new, specially tailored job of national “crime editor.” His roving commission: to go anywhere in the U.S., cover any aspects of crime “likely to interest Post readers.”

Lowall will report major crimes, cover trials, study penal and rehabilitation systems, and look into gambling, racketeering and law enforcement. Explained Publisher Hoyt: “We want to get at the underlying reasons for crime, its implications, the responsibilities of society.” Editor Lowall, who likes his crime served up in the smoking hot manner of the ’20s, put it more bluntly: “I’m going to be house dick for the Denver Post.” His first assignment: the bootlegging business in dry Oklahoma.