I NEVER knew just how it happened, but suddenly I found myself in a publicity mill. Wonderful institution! I received the impression of raw materials in the form of human greed and selfish ambitions, consciously naked, climbing up the fire-escape; here to acquire the habiliments of journalistic respectability, and strut out the front door as honest-to-goodness "news" for the information and divertissement of a supposedly credulous public. What I do recall is that I had accompanied a friend from up State on a shopping tour that led us into one of the downtown office buildings of New York. I paid no attention to the shop talk until the name of the news organization with which I am connected fell on my cars. "What!" my friend exclaimed, turning to me. "The Associated Press?" I nudged him, and the cheerful liar whom he had interrupted continued: "Oh, yes, indeed. We use all the leading dailies for the publication of our advertising news service. Why, only yesterday we sent out over the entire telegraphic system of the Associated Press a corking story on a new line of goods soon to be put on the market by one of our biggest clients." "Interesting," commented the upStater, doubtfully. "Very," I echoed softly, "and untrue." On the street again, my companion, quite stirred up, asked: "Do you mean to tell me that all that mouthy individual told us about using the wires of the Associated Press for distributing advertising matter was pure bunk?" "Absolutely," I replied. "There was not a story carried out of New York yesterday by the Associated Press that by the wildest stretch of the imagination. could be associated with the product he described." "But how do they get away with it? Certainly big business concerns are not going to put up their money unless they see results?" "Here is one way it is done," I told him. "They diligently read the newspapers and spot any story that may seem to have a favorable bearing on the interests of a client. Such a story is shown to the client with the representation that the publication was brought News Fakers By EDWARD McKERNON When The Outlook asked Mr. McKernon to write this article he was Eastern superintendent of the Associated Press. He has since become publisher of the Rochester "Journal and Post Express," a Hearst paper. about through the agent's influence with the press. Of course, the client may have difficulty in grasping the concrete value to him of a particular story, in which case it is explained that his impression only goes to show with what subtlety the publicity man has put over the thought that he wished to plant in the subconsciousness of the reader." That was some time ago, and methods may have been improved, but there is still abundant evidence of a good market for sharpers pretending that space in the news columns of the reputable press can be purchased. A GENTLEMAN who sells his services as a "publicity adviser" came to me with a brief typewritten statement by the president of a large business organization against whom a complaint was to be made by a rival concern before the Interstate Commerce Commission. The statement was offered for use as a "follow" explanatory of the defendant's case if and when we carried from Washington a story reporting that the complaint had been filed. Of course we wanted the statement, and if it had not come to us we would have gone after it as a matter of routine. We would have been glad to have had it over the telephone from the lips of the president himself or, if necessary, to have allowed a reporter to cool his heels at the big man's door until he was ready to have his say. But I knew why the "publicity adviser" had called, and I could not resist the temptation to say: "I suppose it was worth one hundred dollars to you to walk around to our office today?" He grinned and replied: "One hundred dollars? Not less than a hundred and fifty." We are all familiar with the stage rube who once came to town to buy a gold brick and the unwary stranger who by repute is bound to lose his shirt to the "sharks of Wall Street;" but after an observation of twenty-five years from the vantage-ground of the Associated Press I have come to the conclusion that there are more suckers between the Harlem River and the Battery than in all the acreage not so embraced. Of course, the machinations of the publicity crook are facilitated by the inherent crookedness of his employer. The philanderer and courtesan are skeptical of any claim to virtue. The business man or propagandist who is willing to enter into a conspiracy to steal space in the news columns of the daily press, with the double purpose of getting "free advertising" and of influencing the reader unconsciously, is rather easily persuaded that reporters and editors are venal and prepared to betray their pub lishers for a consideration. But this phase of the publicity busi ness is amusing rather than important. We need waste no sympathy on the one who would bunco and is himself buncoed; nor concern ourselves seriously with the fellow who preys upon those so gullible as to believe that they can pur chase “influence” with the press. Neither has any effect on the character of the newspapers. -་་་་་་།་།... of The publicity crook who is dangerous is the one who occasionally does something for the money he receives. For the purposes of the moment we may designate him as the "news faker." I is his business to create artificial situa tions in the hope that they will be mis taken by the newspapers for matters of legitimate interest, and so permit him t foist on the public advertisements of publicity for his clients in the guise o "news." Nine times out of ten his effort is a "flop," but occasionally he puts over something, and to the extent that he is successful journalism is debased and the public misled. We hav become so accustomed to the ballyhoo of public entertainers that I suppose even the morons accept any new "stunt" with the mental reservations of which the may be capable. The sinister thing about it is that re cently, through the allurements of the news faker, some men, business houses. and other organizations of standing and supposed integrity have been intrigue into publicity methods that are a menace to society. The operations of the new faker already are a scandal and threaten. unless checked by exposure, to weaken public confidence in the integrity of the news columns, and so detract from a hard-earned prestige which has been the crowning achievement of modern jour nalism. lest I leave a lasting impression Bunfavorable to a host of renest publicity men and women, I shall digress long enough to make the distinction clear. For the honest publicity representative who works in the open I have the greatest respect. Many such have done the newspapers an inestimable service by facilitating the work of reporters, and they have served both the papers and the reading public by making possible better, more intelligent, and more nearly accurate reports of the activities of the institutions they represent. They have brought to the press a technical knowledge that newspaper men could not be expected to possess, and through their co-operation have made it easier for reporters and editors to determine the news value and the "carrying power" of stories dealing with a thousand and one widely differing subjects. In the offices of the Associated Press every well-known publicity representative has a rating. By their works we know them. There are those with whom we would not waste five minutes, because we know them as parasites. There are many whom we welcome, because we know that they come in the name of news, the only honest approach to our news report. I am inclined to think that the most effective publicity work is being done just now by the churches and welfare organizations. There are two outstanding factors that contribute to their success. One is that very generally they have accepted our code. This is, that it is our responsibility to reflect society as it is. Not as we might like it to be, but, for good or evil, as it is. To report without bias the hard-boiled facts of such events as are significant of the times, unaccompanied by any suggestion of the conclusions to be drawn by the reader. Our only question regarding any proffered contribution is, "Is it significant news?" If so, we will carry it. Otherwise, we will not. a right to expect that what he finds in the strictly news columns will have been influenced by no consideration other than the obligation of the editor to give him the significant news of the day presented with a proper sense of proportion. The other advantage of church and welfare agents is to be found, I think, in the fact that their financial resources are limited. They cannot afford to waste time, space, or postage. Their enforced habit of economy causes them carefully to consider their proposed output and to get it down to a strictly news basis and in such form that it will appeal to busy editors. The economic waste in the publicity business as a whole is appalling. Recently the American Newspaper Publishers Association canvassed several hundred newspapers to determine the average amount of press-agent matter received by daily newspapers through the mails. The conclusion was that each paper received an average of five pounds of copy weekly, the postage on which totaled $200 annually. I accept no responsibility for the figures, but they appear reasonable. There are 2,388 daily newspapers in the country, and, if the suggested estimate holds good, the annual crop of press-agent material addressed to daily papers amounts to 620, 880 pounds, or a little more than 310 tons. The yearly postage bill must be $477,600. This does not take into account similar matter sent to weekly and monthly magazines nor the salaries of those who prepared it, rent, and other office expenses. UT to return to the news faker, whose habitat ought to be a State or Federal prison, wherever more room is available. It may come to that. Of the many experienced, I select three recent instances of news faking to illustrate as many phases of the insidious business. Frequently the object of the news faker is to keep the name of his employer before the public on the sound theory that notoriety often attracts patronage. Not long ago many papers were deceived into publishing that a girl dancer had attempted to drown herself in Central Park lake. On her person was found a photograph of a public entertainer, mute evidence that it was a case of unrequited love. Of course she was "rescued," but the police were roped in and the dancer hurried to a hospital, where she received medical attention Incidentally, I set it down as a broad general principle that it is just as wrong morally to invade the strictly news columns with propaganda for a good cause as it is to invade them with propaganda from, it is said, her own physician. The of evil intent. Either invasion falsifies the picture due to the one who pays two affair was duly recorded on the records or three cents for a newspaper and has of a police station, and from these official records the newspaper reporters ob tained the "story." After the public entertainer had received a lot of publicity, it leaked out, according to "Editor and Publisher," that the "story" had been planted by his press agent. There had been no communication with the city editors; apparently the stage had been set to fool the police, and, this accomplished, the "story" was permitted to develop itself. To the thoughtless this may appear as only a good joke on the police and the press, but, rightly viewed, there is nothing funny about it. The police can keep fairly busy securing the safety of those who must daily thread their way amid the perils of street traffic, and there are still at large a goodly number of cutthroats and robbers whom law-abiding citizens would like to have put away. The hospitals are hard put to it to accommodate the daily toll of sick and injured clamoring for attention. The medical profession could be better engaged ministering to legitimate patients. But did any one ever know of a news faker being punished because he had conspired to distract public servants and public institutions from their grave responsibilities? I never did. faker is to satisfy a racial or religious grudge or to exercise a mistaken sense of political duty. A titled English lady narrowly escaped unpleasant publicity because of our practice of checking so-called patriotic societies. Many such societies are one hundred per cent American. Others are one hundred per cent bunk. bunk. Soon after the Englishwoman arrived in this country we received a neatly typewritten letter from one who signed himself as president of the patriotic organization whose name along with an imposing list of officers and trustees appeared on the printed letterhead. Inclosed was a copy of a letter addressed by the society to the Secretary of Labor at Washington, making charges against the titled one and demanding that she be deported forthwith. OMETIMES the purpose of the news The matter looked interesting, and in the course of things we would have inquired of our Washington office what should be done about it. But first we wanted to know more about this patriotic society, the name of which was not familiar. The city directories and telephone books revealed nothing. That wasn't so good. So we sent a reporter to the address given on the letterhead. It proved to be that of a furniture tenements. store, above which were There was no office. When he inquired (Please turn to continuation, page 151) Hagen, the Undaunted The World This Week If there are any extra prizes for the fighting men of sport, of whatever branch, there must certainly be one for Walter Hagen. The comeback of this great American professional in England which enabled him to win for the third time the British Open championship is practically without parallel in this most uncertain of all sports. Defeated by the worst margin he had ever experienced a few days before the start of the Open, Hagen came back to defeat his conqueror of that match, the towering Archie Compston, of Great Britain, and his countryman, the smiling, swarthyfaced Gene Sarazen. There will be, now, comparisons of Hagen, the king of the professionals, and Bobby Jones, the king of the amateurs. Of the two, Hagen always gives the impression of being perhaps the better fighter. Jones is mechanically perfect, beautifully so. But in his matches Jones seems always to be competing with par. Hagen gives far more the idea of playing the man. Comparisons, however, are not necessary. Certainly there is room enough at the top for both of these superb golfers. In the British Open Hagen started poorly, for golfers of that class. He can get into more trouble than any other golfer alive and survive. There is the secret of his great success-his indomitable will in the face of difficult situations. There is always drama on tap when the sleek-haired Hagen goes around a course in a championship. After his poor start, Hagen set sail for the leaders and passed them. Sarazen, who had played a much better game at the start but was unable to meet the last gallant burst of Hagen, followed Hagen by two strokes; Compston was in third place with one stroke more. Hagen's other victories in the British. Open were scored in 1922 and 1924. The British have won this title of theirs only twice since the tournament was revived at the close of the war-once in 1920 and the last time in 1923. Bobby Jones had won during the past two years. Hoover and the Laconic Mellon A FEW words from Secretary Andrew W. Mellon have proved to be political news of the first order and have given a great impetus to the candidacy of Herbert Hoover. Indeed, these few words from the Secretary of the Treasury, who is also a great power in the Republican organization of Pennsylvania, have done more than offset Mr. Hoover's defeat in the Republican primaries of Indiana. These are the words with which Mr. Mellon produced his sensation: "We hear much talk of the various candidates and of their policies. Among them all, Mr. Hoover seems to come the closest to the standard that we set for this great office." Pennsylvania's seventy-nine delegates to the Republican National Convention constitute a great prize for any candidate. Though Mr. Mellon's words do not commit these delegates to Mr. Hoover, they make as certain as anything political can be that the Pennsylvania delegation, and behind it the Pennsylvania organization, will be firmly aboard the Hoover band-wagon when the time comes for the Hoover band-wagon to appear. No longer is the Pennsylvania Republican machine controlled by the hand of a single astute engineer, as it was in the days of Matthew Quay and the earlier part of the career of Boies Penrose. The eastern and western ends of the State have been at odds with each other. Apparently both ends of the organization have acquired respect for popular sentiment. It is no reflection upon Mr. Mellon's sincerity to say that his tribute to Mr. Hoover is an acknowledgment of the direction in which public sentiment has been moving in that State. Among certain political prophets Secretary Mellon has been considered antiHoover. His utterance now at a caucus of Pennsylvania Republicans in Philadelphia, the bailiwick of William S. Vare, makes it clear that he can be counted as anti-Hoover no longer. Though Mr. Mellon's statement was accompanied by a recommendation that the Republicans of Pennsylvania hold themselves "unpledged and uncommitted to any particular candidate," and though he is reported to have said in an interview that "it is not certain that Mr. Coolidge will not consent to the use of his name," his words give one more indication that the full strength of the Administration has been getting behind Mr. Hoover. "Peaches-and-Cream" Criminals DR. WALTER TIMME, of the Neurological Institute of New York, after researches which have lasted for seventeen years, points to the danger of believing that criminals are invariably low-browed, furtive, repulsive-appearing characters. Prominent among those naturally inclined toward criminality, he has found. is "a certain type of blond, curly-haired giant with a peaches-and-cream complexion." Out of twenty-five men serving life terms in a New York State prison, Dr. Timme found, twenty-four were abnor mal from a glandular standpoint. The dangerous "curly-haired giant" has an over-active thymus gland. This prolongs childish characteristics and gives, at the same time, the "peaches-and-cream complexion." Dr. Timme describes this type as having a "Rolls-Royce body with an inadequate engine." Unable to compete with his fellows, he is likely to turn toward crime. The thyroid, the pituitary, and the thymus glands are chiefly involved in the defects of criminal types. Glandular trouble often produces, contradictory 2 it may appear, men in which a high intellectual standard is nullified by moronic tendencies. Dr. Timme has examined so many criminals that he now can detect tendencies at a glance. These are not, however, as obvious as the lay public believes. He has examined persons, later convicted of crime, who were "attractive and with whom one feels he could trust his life." Mrs. Knapp Still Under Charges DISAGREEMENT in a jury has left Mrs. Florence E. S. Knapp, former Secretary of State of New York, still under the accusation of grand larceny and subject to a new trial. She was the first woman to be elected to high executive office in any State east of the Mississippi. After getting a report in her favor from a Democratic District Attorney, Governor Smith was reluctant to press the charges against this former Republican official, not of his political faith. Public opinion, however, forced the case into the court. In the trial the chief witness against her was her stepdaughter. Testimony made it clear that Mrs. Knapp had made Underwood & Underwood a practice of signing other people's As the judge's charge indicates, the "Women," said Judge Callaghan, charging the jury, "have in recent years taken their place alongside men in almost every field of endeavor.... They cannot share the privileges extended to them and be relieved of the responsibilities." He thus made clear that no special consideration should be given to the fact that the defendant was a woman. "Larceny from the State," he said, "is just the same as larceny from the individual." And he told the jurors that there was no ground for condoning socalled "honest graft." One of the jurors who voted for acquittal was quoted as saying in a published interview that if the District At torney, whose work as prosecutor he knew as a grand juror for ten years, had found the proof insufficient, he himself could not vote for conviction. On the charge that he was swayed by other considerations than the evidence, as well as that he had concealed his bias, this juror was cited for contempt and censured. Mr. Rockefeller Grows Indignant BECAUSE he has "lost confidence in Colonel Stewart's leadership," Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., has called for the resignation of Colonel Robert W. Stewart as chairman of the board of the Standard Oil Company of Indiana. Mr. Rockefeller, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the members of the family own about 15 per cent of the outstanding stock of the company. Mr. Rockefeller speaks officially as a stockholder. In a letter Mr. Rockefeller refers to Colonel Stewart's "recent testimony before the Senate committee" investigating the connection of the Continental Trading Company with the Teapot Dome oil scandal. This testimony has been given on two occasions, the first on February 2 of this year and the second on April 24. It was three days after the latter appearance of Colonel Stewart that Mr. Rockefeller demanded his resignation. On February 2 Stewart swore that he knew little, personally, about the Continental bonds and that he had never received any of them. But on April 24, after Harry F. Sinclair had been found guiltless by a Washington jury, Stewart. said that $759,500 in Continental profits had been allotted to him in the shape of Liberty Bonds. These he placed in trust for the Standard Oil of Indiana and the Sinclair Crude Oil Purchasing Company. It all sounds very much like the recent testimony of Will H. Hays. And Mr. Rockefeller is being congratulated for asking Stewart's resignation. It appears doubtful, however, that this will be forthcoming immediately. Stewart became furiously angry when reporters attempted to question him and is said to have appealed to his friends for support. Flying in Rocket Airplanes THROUGH the newspapers we have heard Whether the fuel gases employed to drive a vehicle are expanded in a cylinder to drive a piston, as in the ordinary internal-combustion motor, or in another kind of cylinder or rocket to react merely against the air or even against the vehicle itself according to the Second Law of Newton (action and reaction opposite and equal), is intrinsically immaterial. Rockets of sufficient energy and speed will most certainly climb, and the height to which they will climb depends directly upon the energy made available. Professor Goddard, the physicist, of Clark University, has long been performing research on super-rockets designed to reach high altitudes and permit meteorologists to explore the atmosphere above the height-some twenty miles to which their actual explorations have already reached. Such rockets would doubtless discharge the products of the combustion of monatomic hydrogen. When and if the earth's envelope of air is passed, they will actually speed up by about one-fifth. Laboratory experiment has proved this fact beyond a doubt, for Professor Goddard's rockets. when fired in a vacuum actually strained upward with more pressure than in the open air. This silenced summarily those who could not shake off the belief that a rocket can move only by pushing back ward against some outside medium. If the Germans, behind the confusing screen of the foreign newspaper reporter, are making use of the facts about rockets already known to scientists, there is no intrinsic reason why their rocket plane cannot reach as yet unattained heights. Mr. Ford Views Aviation and the Presidential Year HENRY FORD, as he arrived in New York Harbor on his return from Europe, was persuaded to make some remarks on prosperity in this Presidential year and on aviation. "The Presidential election has nothing to do with industrial prosperity," said Mr. Ford, according to the New York "Times," thus assailing a cherished tenet in the American political creed. And he continued: "Business will keep on being good through the summer and fall without any regard to the outcome." When asked about aviation, Mr. Ford's face lightened. "Some day," he Ford's face lightened. "Some day," he predicted, "there is going to be a machine that will equal the imagination of man. Whenever a man imagines a thing, he can sooner or later produce it. That's what I think. It will be an airplane that won't have to go ninety miles an hour to rise or the same to land. It will settle down quietly in a small space and it won't be dangerous. It will come but, of course, there will have to be a lot of changes. We may not be near the idea yet; but it will come." He quoted Thomas Edison as saying that a bird flies well because it is ninety-five per cent bird, while a man flying is ninety five per cent man. But he added, "I may well be that the airplane of the f ture will not develop along the lines of a bird." It was to his son Edsel, however, th he referred his questioners when th made inquiries about specific aviati matters, as, for example, whether Col nel Lindbergh would be connected wit his factory in making airplanes. To a fellow-passenger he said tha 2,600 former convicts are in his emplo and that ninety-five per cent of the when given employment went straight. Brazil Stays Out of the League WHEN Brazil failed to obtain a perma nent seat on the Council of the Leagu of Nations in 1926, she announced he intention to withdraw. Recently an a peal by the League to Brazil not to i sist upon her resignation has found he unwilling to change her stand. Spain after quitting Geneva at the same tim for the same reason, has accepted th invitation to return, but the great South American republic finds no reason f changing her mind. The Brazilian Government offers collaboration in the League's human tarian endeavors, in the World Court and in international conferences. Th assent of the Council would establish precedent in favor of allowing resigne members to continue to take part i some of the activities under Leagu auspices. In Geneva, Brazil's response is inte preted as leaving the way open to rene membership. But her present persis tence in declining to stay in the Leagu makes a significant break in the ranks o its Latin-American adherents. A Silly Poet Is Paroled THE foolishness of David Gordon, wh landed in jail because he wrote a second rate poem, was equaled only by the pa i triots who wished to have him kept jail for the full period of an indeterm nate sentence which might have run three years. Now that he has been leased on parole, his poem, "America held under the New York State law t be obscene, will be forgotten. And Go don will have opportunity to acquire| degree of maturity. Gordon's type is familiar enough |