The Press: Angry Readers

The Detroit Free Press has been fighting Franklin Roosevelt’s Administration tooth & toenail over New Deal “red tape” which the Free Press believes holds up defense orders, keeps U. S. citizens marooned in Canada.

One day last week Managing Editor Douglas DeVeny Martin answered his telephone, heard an irate subscriber shout something about a picture of Franklin Roosevelt wearing a Hitler mustache. Mystified, Editor Martin looked over that day’s editions, found a wirephoto of the President with a vague shadow on his upper lip that might have been mistaken for a penciled imitation of the Nazi Führer’s brush.

For two days, Free Press wires were jammed with angry phone calls. Meanwhile, readers discovered fresh evidence of a plot to smear the President when next day the Free Press printed a picture of Wendell Willkie pointing to his lip. Cried suspicious callers: “See? He’s showing that he doesn’t wear a Hitler mustache!” Next morning the Free Press printed both pictures, along with a little piece about the phone calls and the heat.

No sooner was the sun up than bells began to jangle louder than ever in the Free Press city room. Baffled again was Editor Martin until he managed to calm one reader down, demanded: “What on earth is wrong now?” Said his caller: “Hold that picture of Roosevelt up to the light.” Editor Martin did. The swastika which appeared on the Roosevelt face showed through from an anti-Nazi cartoon on the reverse side of the page.