The Press: Pulitzer Prizes

When Joseph Pulitzer’s great New York World fell into the hands of Scripps-Howard two years ago to be merged into the New York World-Telegram, the new owners had to reckon with the resentment that is directed at anyone who has a hand in scrapping a respected newspaper. As defense against the charge of “Munseyism”* Publisher Roy Wilson Howard declaimed: “The consolidation means not the death of the New York World but its rebirth.” Last week Scripps-Howard could point with pride to evidence of its sincerity. The World-Telegram was awarded the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for “the most disinterested and meritorious public service rendered by an American newspaper during the year.” The public service prize (gold medal costing $500) was won not by a single exploit but by a medley of campaigns pushed by the World-Telegram last year: an exposé of discreditable phases of veterans’ relief by Reporter Talcott Powell; a series on the real estate bond racket by Reporters Joseph Lilly & Fred Woltman; an expose of the lottery schemes of the Eagles and Moose lodges which led to Federal prosecution (TIME. Aug. 29 et seq.) by Reporter Winston Murrill; urging New York City voters to write-in the name of upstanding Joseph V. McKee for Mayor, after Tammany had rejected his candidacy. The McKee campaign resulted in 242,026 write-in votes. It was directed personally by Publisher Howard and Editor Lee Wood. Other Pulitzer prizes announced last week: Best Foreign Correspondence — to Edgar Ansel Mowrer. Berlin correspondent of the Chicago Daily News, $500 for coverage and interpretation of the political crises in Germany, especially the rise of Hitlerism. Thick-mopped, pince-nezed Reporter Mowrer, 41, is younger brother of the even more distinguished Paul Scott Mowrer, chief of the Daily News’s foreign service. Brother Paul got the Pulitzer prize in 1928 for his weekly reviews of European politics, cabled from Paris. Brother Edgar is president of the Foreign Press Association in Berlin, a position from which the Nazis lately tried and failed to oust him because they disliked his book— Germany Puts the Clock Back (TIME, April 17). Best Editorial—to the Kansas City Star, $500 for a series ”on national and international subjects … an editorial educa-tional campaign which exerted wide influence in the Mississippi Valley.” Best Reporting—to Francis A. Jamieson. New Jersey correspondent of The Associated Press, $1,000 for able coverage of the Lindbergh kidnapping story. Newshawk Jamieson was closely acquainted with New Jersey’s Governor Arthur Harry Moore, an advantage which he wisely pressed and which led to his getting a half-hour “beat” on the story’s climax— the discovery of Baby Lindbergh’s body. Best Cartoon—to Harold Morton Talburt of Scripps-Howard’s Washington Daily News, $500 for his cartoon entitled “The Light of Asia.” It showed a brawny fist, labeled Japan, clutching a crumpled sheaf of papers which blazed like a torch. It was marked: “Nine Power Treaty— Kellogg Pact.” Cartoonist Talburt, one-time Toledo soda-jerker, is a Scripps-Howard ace. Oldtime Editor Negley D. Cochran who developed him says: “Some of us write editorials and are called editors; Talburt draws editorials and is called a cartoonist.” The 1932 Pulitzer Prize for books on U. S. themes: Best Novel—Thomas Sigismund Stribling. $1,000 for The Store (TIME, July 4). Best Play—Maxwell Anderson, $1,000 for Both Your Houses (TIME, Mar. 13). Best History—to the late Frederick J. Turner, $2,000 for The Significance of Sections in American History. Best Biography—Allan Nevins. $1,000 for Grover Cleveland (TIME, Jan. 2). Best Volume of Verse—Archibald MacLeish of the editorial staff of FORTUNE, $1,000 for Conquistador (TIME, April 11).

Social Items

Cincinnati is one of those rare cities in which a society editor is the social tsarina —Marion Devereux, a spry, birdlike, fiftyish spinster who inherited from her mother the society editorship of the polite. McLean-owned Enquirer* No party is held without her consultation months in advance as to date. An event scheduled against her advice is doomed to obscurity. Mothers and daughters may object to her domination, but not in her presence. For Editrix Devereux has at her command such social barbs as “She appeared encased in that striking green dress which has graced so many previous occasions.” Last week came a climax in Miss Dev-ereux’s professional life. The daughter of the Enquirer’s Editor William F. Wiley —her boss’s daughter—was being married. Now her page, already a marvel of descriptive prose, must outdo itself. Marion Devereux rose splendidly to the occasion. For two-and-one-half columns she rhapsodized. Excerpts: “Last night the marriage of Miss Margaret Wiley and Mr. Campbell Dinsmore was an event of wide importance both for its social interest and owing to the fact that the fathers of both bride and groom are nationally known, Mr. William Foust Wiley as a publicist and publisher, a citizen of acknowledged judgment and influence, and Mr. Frank Furbus Dinsmore as a lawyer of high repute and marked ability. . . . “Into the hush of this ambient twilight came the bridal procession, the feathery green of tender laurel that wreathed choir stalls, pulpit and rood screen, and the curving fronds of a few giant palms massed in the chancel, pointing the way to the altar where the snowy chalices of tall Easter lilies were sentineled by blazing candelabra, seven-branched. . . . “Very pretty with lovely light brown hair and gray-blue eyes, the bride’s youthfulness suddenly seemed to take on a certain queenliness as she swept from end to end of this lane of light. Her gown of soft white crinkly crepe was the essence of simplicity and therefore the perfection of chic. . . . “Held closely to her well-poised head, her fair hair visible through its delicate mesh, this airy, unsubstantial fabric [the veil] drifted in long, broad folds for yards behind her, as fragile as a mist, enmeshing her tall figure, concealing her face, and, in its upturned brim that circled her shapely head, forming the semblance of a halo, that gave her the air of one of the saints or angels that, in color, looked down from the gorgeous memorial windows on every hand. . . .” Actually the two-and-one-half columns showed a degree of restraint. Miss Devereux has been known to devote four columns to a wedding or ball, 16 columns to a day’s social news. To her, debutantes are “rosebuds,” a dining table is “the central mahogany,” a woman’s dress is a “toilet.” Her copy is sacred. When a cotillion was being formed four years ago no editor touched pencil to the information that it was an organization of “young celibrates” for whom tailcoats would be “de Rigeuer.” Some society editors in other cities are as remarkable if not so powerful as Marion Devereux: Boston had until last winter a tsar to match Tsarina Devereux. He was Charles Elmer (“Charlie”) Alexander, past 60, of the Transcript, to whose office generations of Sewing Circle and Vincent Club girls beat a path, bearing portraits and news about themselves. It was lordly Charles Alexander who, many years ago. prompted a secretary to announce: “The gentleman from the Transcript, and four reporters.” Last winter Mr. Alexander yielded his duties to his assistant. Anne L. Lawless, known to her colleagues as “Orchid Annie.” Manhattan’s social writing dean is an elderly gentleman with a walrus mustache—Frank Leslie Baker of the Times. His department is supposed to admit to print all creeds providing they can claim an ancestor who lived in the U. S. before the Civil War. More colorful than their dean are Maury Henry Riddle Paul (“Cholly Knickerbocker”) and Baron George Wrangel (“Billy Benedick”) of Hearst’s American and Journal, respectively. The Baron, 30, is a nephew of famed “White Russian” General Peter Nicholaievich Wrangel. Dapper, bubbling “Cholly Knickerbocker” owns the copyright to his nom de plume, a valuable asset. His breezy column is famed for “plugging” favorites. Philadelphia society, according to Joseph Hergesheimer who likes parties and lives near there, is as dull as what the society editors write about it. Oldest and most reliable society editor is Olga Gel-hause of the Bulletin. No socialite, she rarely goes to parties, rarely even has to telephone. Submitted material from the Best Families floods her desk. The presence of Judith Jennings, daughter of a prominent Germantown minister, on the Record has brought that liberal, crusad-ing, sometimes vulgar sheet into homes which never admitted it before. Washington’s elegant society editors include no dictator; all are accustomed to having their hands kissed by Latin Ambassadors. The city’s social news is reported in the manner of a court gazette. The President, members of the Cabinet, Supreme Court, Senate, sometimes of the House of Representatives, get top-column position. The meticulous Star’s Mrs. Sally Pickett goes the whole hog, prints an entire column of names of guests (down to the assistant solicitor of the Department of Labor) at a tea given by the Minister of the Dominican Republic. The Post’s society editor is the most authoritative. She is blonde Evelyn Peyton Gordon, daughter of the judge who sent Oilman Harry Sinclair to jail. Her assistant is Sydney Sullivan, daughter of arch-Republican Writer Mark Sullivan. On lively Eleanor (“Cissy”) Patterson’s Herald (Hearst-owned) is the highest-paid society editor in town, svelte Ruth Jones. By turning attention to the Capital’s ‘coon-hunting, cocktail-drinking younger set she has been helping get the Herald into Washington’s front doors instead of through the back. Chicago’s social press dean is Ervie Ravenbyrne (“Chaperon”) of Hearst’s American, who weekends with the elect. She and “Dowager” (Helen Young) of Hearst’s Herald & Examiner are assisted by able socialite reporters. Martha Granger Blair and Betty Field. New Orleans, The Times-Picayune’s Anna Bolton Ellis, grey and gracious, has held her job for 32 years, is nearly as potent in her sphere as Cincinnati’s Devereux in hers, assigning party dates and terrifying climbers. From January through Mardi Gras, New Orleans social-writers lead a hectic life, covering the highly organized festivities of their city. Seattle is a Democratic town. On its society pages from time to time appear the names of prominent Orientals, and occasionally a Negro’s, San Francisco’s most important society colyumist is Ethel Whitmire of the Hearst Examiner. She is related to Publisher Hearst, was his mother’s constant companion for years. On the ChronicL— Mildred Brown is assisted by Mrs. Oscar Sutro Jr. of the sugar-&-mining Sutros. Nearest to a dictator is Agnes Duff Fenwick of the Scripps-Howard News, divorced wife of Lumberman Hugh Fenwick. Los Angeles looks to Mrs. Juana Neal Levy of the Times for social guidance. Hearst’s Examiner has “Cholly Angelo” (Mrs. Jean Loughborough) and gives prominent bylines to Princess Marie de Bourbon, cousin of Spain’s Alfonso. Sh” tells most of her information to Mrs. Loughborough who ghost-writes it for her. In the Examiner the cinema colony has its own society department, run by Reine Davies (real name: Douras), sister of Film Actress Marion Davies. Headline-of-the-Week In the New York Times:

OTTO KAHN PRAISES CAPITALIST SYSTEM

*The late Publisher Frank Andrew Munsey scrapped seven Manhattan dailies during his career. *The estate of the late John Roll McLean owns also the troubled Washington Post, now in receivership. The Post’s publisher, ousted last year, was John McLean’s extravagant son Edward Beale (“Ned”). Last week “Ned’s” estranged wife, Evalyn Walsh McLean, in hope of buying the Post for her three children, was trying to raise $250,000 on her jewelry, including the “unlucky,” Sunday-supplement-famed Hope Diamond.