Show WHO'S NEWS THIS a WEEK By LEMUEL F. F PARTON F Service NEW YORK The The recent em emancipation emancipation and pation proclamation of Kenesaw Kenesaw Kene- Kene saw Mountain Landis freeing an oppressed op op- oppressed pressed minority of major and N Newfound ew h oun el G Got ot minor league ban ball players Landis Aid and anel reminded this courier of the Praise Pralle D r of Chief big bUzzard blizzard in Chicago along about 1906 I was wasa a new and bewildered reporter from the sticks tossed into the maelstrom of a federal court railroad case because because be be- cause there was nobody else to send lend except the office boy It was as in intelligible In n as a squirrel cage The defending attorney loosed a gas attack attack at at- tack of statistics and my pencil dropped from my limp fingers Angers The judge a little lIlUe brown wheat wheat- straw of a man with a chrysanthemum mum thatch got lot me in the sharp focus of his bright agate eye I hadn't been wrecking any trains or robbing banks but I began to fear the worst I wondered whether my elaborate ignorance of what was happening could possibly be construed construed con con- as a federal offense Then the blow felt fell The judge gavelled down the spouting lawyer and said the court would take a brief recess Then he be beckoned me into his chambers He lIe asked me to sit down Then he said I hadn't seen seeD you yon at the press table before This case Is confusing 1 I thought I 1 might help you yoa In ID getting citing It U straight Its It's like Uke this In Ina ina a few concise sentences he be brought the courtroom bub hubbub Into something understandable I 1 managed to write a story about It without breaking my arm and got cot my first anal pat on 00 the back from a city editor who was no spendthrift with such gestures The little Judge Landis was waa like Uke that and any newspaper newspaperman man who ever knew him will insist that his hIa a year a year honorarium as baseball commissioner isn't half balf enough He was a corporation lawyer law yer yet before he began calling strikes on big business and was appointed to the federal bench by Theodore Roosevelt at the peak of T. T its R.'s Ro trust busting rampage In his dual capacity he has punished two of the major institutions of America the Standard Oil company and Babe Ruth the former with a fine One He was a newsboy in Logansport Ind a semi pro baseball player a stenographer and court clerk at 18 and soon tJ thereafter a law school graduate and practicing lawyer His appointment as national commissioner commis commis- commissioner of baseball grew out of the Black Sox scandal in 1919 THE going easy-going free for of Df American journalism in which public officials sometimes owe their high status to an understanding 11 U U. U S S. S Has H Ha a. a Eel F Ede Edge 8 ge of n newspaper men and ho bowOn how bow w On Oh Europe in to get gel on with n n t them has given Press Pre Relations en tits this jy country country coun coun- try an advantage over Europe in wartime press relations In 10 the World war and now in the present war Europe has demonstrated the limitations of even the most intelligent Intel intelli i. i gent of its bureaucrat bureaucrats in la co cooperating co ing lag with the press While England and France have traditionally a afree afree afree free press the human contacts between between be be- tween the correspondents and high officialdom are still lacking and both countries are snarled in censorship censorship cen troubles At the start of the war liberal opinion noted with satisfaction s that France and England bad had appointed respectively to their thelt ministries of cl information a distinguished literary man and playwright and a leading scholar It seemed to be an exemplification exem of their war alms aims But like the brass hats hat of th the past they didn't seem to U understand newspapers newspapers pers or newspaper men The scholarly Lord MacMillan of or England has bas faded Into the background and his press censor censor cen cen- sor Vice Admiral C. C V V. V rne roe I U Iv replaced by the clubby and aud gregarious Sir Walter T. T ton too In France Jean lUll the playwright is still minister of or Information but bat his Ills office Inspires inspires In in- spires bitter stories In la the American Amer lean ican press pres about fantastic re re- The censorship tang tanch Is ls an au Iss Issue sl dally mounting Importance Im Im- In France Newspaper men liked M. M Gira Gira- doux tremendously when he was wai spokesman for the French ministry of foreign affairs a few years ago He was w perhaps in Goethe's phrase aU all too human for any careful grooving of public opinion opinion his his own Is Ironic and whimsical whimsical and and has been surrounded with a bulwark of bureaucracy against which newspaper per men are thrown for a loss lass He HeIs Heis is tS a o charming gentleman of 53 who was severely gassed Inthe in inthe the World war and so 0 speaks in a hJ husky ky voice He did a short turn at Harvard before the World war |