The Press: In Boston

The Governor was spluttery angry. Rising stiffly from his chair in the gilt-domed Massachusetts State House on Boston’s famed Common, he surveyed the handful of newsmen gathered before him for his weekly press conference. Then he said to Reporter Arnold Beichman of New York’s hyperthyroid PM: “I should think that was a stinking article and you get right out of this office . . . and stay out.” A State trooper escorted Reporter Beichman, 5 ft. 5 and 137 lb., to the street.

The story that made aristocratic, long-faced Leverett Saltonstall hopping mad appeared last week in PM. Its charges: 1) that an “antiSemitic campaign of terrorism” had been under way in Boston more than a year; 2) that gangs of Christian Front, Coughlinite “marauders” roam the streets at night, breaking windows in Jewish stores and synagogues, beating Jews; 3) that authorities and Boston papers have been silent.

Beichman had affidavits. But to Boston reporters, Saltonstall said the Beichman story was “far from the truth.”

Nevertheless, Beichman was right. A day after denying that such organized hoodlumism existed in Boston, Saltonstall ordered State police to investigate, prevent further outbreaks. He appointed a committee of Catholics, Protestants and Jews to advise him on the problem. And when PM gleefully referred to Boston as a city “where the people talk only to Beichman but Beichman can’t talk to the Gov.,” fair-minded Governor Saltonstall backtracked some more. He granted Reporter Beichman a 15-minute interview which began with a “Glad to see you,” and included the admission “I had a rude awakening on Monday.”

Question of Judgment. Governor Saltonstall was not the only one. To many Bostonians PM’s story was a revelation, not only of Coughlinism in Boston, but of Boston’s press. Their own papers had indeed been suppressing news.

Forthwith, Boston papers began carrying stories and editorials on the city’s unwholesome antiSemitism. In the months before PM’s story was printed, not one had published a solid word on the subject. Readers now wondered why. They soon got a partial answer.

Said the Boston-published Christian Science Monitor’s able, scholarly managing editor, Erwin D. Canham: “The Monitor has been investigating anti-Jewish violence in Boston for many months. We [did not] print a comprehensive story [because] many responsible leaders in the Jewish community were grievously disturbed at the prospect of publicity, fearing it would do more harm than good.”

PM, obsessed by no such fears, with characteristic shrillness and vim had snatched up the story, made it one of Boston’s best beats in months.