The Press: Balaam Beaver

Readers blinked their eyes and looked again; there, in Lord Beaverbrook’s arch-Tory London Evening Standard, in a column-long leader, was a eulogy of white-topped “Mr. A. J. Cummings . . . the distinguished columnist of the Liberal Party who writes in the News Chronicle. He is a warrior in defense of liberty, a crusader in the cause of justice, freedom and righteousness.”

Like Balaam, the leader hadn’t started out that way. A fortnight ago, Rival Editor Cummings had given the Beaverbrook press a resounding thwack. “The Daily Express,” he wrote in his News Chronicle column, “seems to have the British Empire on the brain … It opposes Marshall aid and Western Union as policies inimical to the Empire [and] keeps up its dreary drip of criticism unfortified by any rational alternatives . . .”

Furious, Lord Beaverbrook had ordered his evening Standard to come to the defense of his morning Express. Eager Beaver-boys combed the files for old tomatoes to throw at Cummings. They could find little or nothing—even after they had called the victim himself for help. Highly amused, A.J. told the News Chronicle to give Beaver’s boys anything they wanted. When the Standard finally got its editorial blast together, the unpredictable Beaver objected that it didn’t give his old personal friend and political enemy his due as a journalist. The more Lord Beaverbrook thought about it, the greater journalist Cummings became.

Last week, the liberal Manchester Guardian emitted a suspicious humph: “Putting all this nonsense together, it looks as though Lord Beaverbrook is trying by his own peculiar methods to help the Tory overtures for a Liberal-Conservative alliance . . . Lord Beaverbrook is losing touch.”