Press: Best Wishes & Best Wishes

When, in August 1932, Frank Aloysius Tichenor hired Alfred Emanuel Smith at a fancy figure to edit his New Outlook, it was not because he valued Citizen Smith’s untested talents as a journalist, but because he knew that anything Al Smith said or wrote would be important news. For a year and a half, the most important news that Editor Smith made was criticism of the Roosevelt Administration. In the first issue of the New Outlook, he called the Forgotten Man a myth (TIME, Oct. 10, 1932). In May last year he urged caution about inflation. In June, he could not understand how NRA would work. In September, he criticized Postmaster General Farley’s distribution of patronage. In October, the New Outlook released his open letter to the New York State Chamber of Commerce in which he said: “I am for gold dollars as against baloney dollars.” When the letter appeared in the New Outlook for December, it was accompanied by an editorial in which Editor Smith compared the Administration to an absent-minded professor playing “anagrams with alphabet soup.” Such advertising, however, helped to run the New Outlook’s circulation up from 85,000 to 200,000. Last week, for the first time since he joined the New Outlook, Al Smith made news of another sort. Gist of the news was contained in two letters: “Dear Frank: It is with great regret that I tender you my resignation as editor-in-chief of the New Outlook. . . . My business interests take all of my time.* . . I enjoyed working with you. . . . With best wishes. . . . Alfred E. Smith.” “My Dear Governor: It is with the deepest and sincerest regret that I acknowledge your note. . . . My extreme reluctance in the matter of conforming to your unselfish wish is inspired by my personal appreciation of your cooperation and devoted editorial assistance. . . . Your guidance and assistance have been an inspiration. . . . With best wishes. . . . Frank A. Tichenor.” Quick to speculate on more fundamental reasons than his “business interests” to explain the Smith retirement, newspapers found two likely ones. Of late. Editor Smith, always proud of his Democratic regularity, has been growing more friendly toward the Roosevelt Administration. He sympathized with the President in the uproar over airmail contracts. Publisher Tichenor. in addition to New Outlook, owns Spur, Sportsman Pilot. Port and Aero Digest. March number of Aero Digest contains a sizzling column by Publisher Tichenor in his ”Air—Hot and Otherwise” department which flays the Administration’s cancellation of contracts. The April issue of New Outlook will have a similar article. Another difference of opinion between Editor Smith and his employer was supposed to have concerned an article by Edward Angly (Oh Yeah) in which pre-inaugural statements by Mr. Roosevelt are contrasted with postinaugural developments. Editor Smith rejected the article. It too (“A Story Time Has Told”) will appear in the April issue of New Outlook. Newr editor-in-chief of the New Outlook will be onetime Herald Tribune Newshawk Francis Walton, managing editor under Al Smith.

*Mr. Smith is president of Empire State, Inc.; chairman of the board of Lawyers County Trust Co., Meenan Coal Co. and Federal Broadcasting Co., and chairman of the board of trustees of the College of Forestry at Syracuse University: director of New York Life Insurance Co., Consolidated Indemnity and Insurance Co., Knott Corp., National Surety Corp., the Henry Street Settlement, Beekman Street Hospital and the Leauue of New York Theatres.