When word spread that President Eisenhower would like to “go out and shoot some crows” during his Gettysburg sojourn, the President got a respectful but disapproving letter from the “Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Old Crows.” Copies also reached news-hungry wire-service correspondents at Gettysburg, and soon the deadpan stories were going out on U.P. and I.N.S. wires. Last week— as once before (TIME, Sept. 7, 1953)—the crows were coming home to roost: into the office of the society (which consists of a pressagent for National Distillers’ Old Crow whisky) flew more than 500 clippings showing how the wise old bird had made gulls of the Washington Post and Times Herald, the Boston Daily Record and other papers all over the U.S.
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