The Press: Broun Back

The brilliant, unkempt figure of Heywood Broun lumbered back into the newspaper business again last week. For four months Mr. Broun has been writing for The Nation (which avers his contributions added 7,000 readers); other weeklies and monthlies. In August the famed columnist struck when the World refused to print columns on Sacco-Vanzetti. Bright exponent of “personal journalism,” he demanded the right to write what he please. By contract obligations to the World he was helpless to write for newspapers.

Said he, returning: “I am not sorry about anything I wrote during the Sacco-Vanzetti case. If such a situation should arise again I would be amenable to editing.”

Pert Headlines

COOLIDGE SEEKS SENATE ORDER FOR ANOTHER WORLD CONFERENCE

This pert headline was published last week by the New York Times.

Had President Coolidge decided to try again for a naval disarmament parley similar to the unfruitful Geneva Conference initiated by him last year? He had not. But so thought many a reader who depends upon the Times to say what it means without levity.

The first paragraph under the inexcusable headline seemed a clear case of typographical transposition. It said:

“The private and professional lives of bugs, beetles, caterpillars and worms will be discussed by learned men of the world at CornellUniversity next year.”

The next paragraph sprang the Times’ joke: “President Coolidge today asked Congress for authority to invite . . . the International Congress of Entomologists. . . .”