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Show Sees It U nfrfc Pegler Released by WNU Features. pHE New York Herald Tribune formerly was known to the pro- ! fession and the laity as a pillar of the Republican party, the British empire and the Church of England, j It waj stodgy, elderly and, according accord-ing to its own lights and heresies, holy. j A change began early in the New Deal which now has become total, j Whatever its for- ! mal party affUia- I r tion. the Herald I JWii il Tribune, as of .now, i -.Ji must be 3ud6ed by iv"! x 'ts comPany a"d 'ts i I f edilorlal manners, jj l, j ; and these are in- r consistent with its s past. In studying the i.. , airange ponucal policy or spirit of the Herald Tribune one comes across Communists and friends and associates of Communists who are lavishly publicized, usually In oraise. Much of the reading matter In a metropolitan paper Is yes-and-no copy. It isn't news but fca- ture stuff. Leave it out and nobody no-body Is deprived except the subject sub-ject who might have been advertised ad-vertised free but wasn't. As between be-tween a fellow who runs with the Communists and one who opposes and shuns them, an editor can make an arbitrary choice. As a starting point of these essays, es-says, I return tothe observation of Joe "..La, our ambassador to Moscow, who wrote that Joe Barnes, the foreign-editor and, in reality, the policy editor of the Herald Tribune, was a "radical" and that Mrs. Barnes was "much more radical" than her husband. That makes a pretty radical combination in charge of the policy of a paper which used to be a well-edited, well-written, conscientious Republican party organ. Howard Barnes, the drama editor of the Herald Tribune, is the brother of Joe, the policy-maker. D . By a rule of val- Ku'e uea that baffles me, of the theatrical de-Space de-Space partment had shown a crush on a Broadway Broad-way gag-writer named Garson Ka-nin. Ka-nin. His great work is a comedy called "Born Yesterday." In this, he exalted the New Republic and thus, inferentially, Henry Wallace, its front editor until recently. Kanln personified free enterprise as an illiterate, larcenous Junk-dealer and the U. S. congress as a sniveling thief. The show has some laughs and a pretty blonde. Kanln seems to be no Communist himself for he has made careful arrangements to get out of his tawdry play, every dollar that the law allows. , The nerald Tribune has been craxy over Kanln and this play ' and the infatuation even extended extend-ed to a show by Donald Ogden Stewart or Hollywood, who nas been mentioned In connection with more Red fronts than Stalin himself In the congressional investigations. in-vestigations. Kanln was the producer. All actors, producers and press agents know that a two-column" head in the Herald Tribune's Sunday Sun-day drama layout is a great prize. Just casually I have noted in the Sunday section two three-column pictures and one two-column caricature cari-cature for Kanln's interests and a half dozen gratuitous puffs of artificial arti-ficial text. One picture was Just a dumb, vague photograph of a bunch of people in common clothes sitting around, reading. They were the cast of this new play of Stewart's, about to be produced by Kanin. It was called "How I Wonder" and It laid an egg. There was absolutely nothing noth-ing but personal favor to explain this free advertising. Why not give space away to people peo-ple noted for their Americanism if you profess to be a Republican paper? Let the Dally Worker and Marshall Field's thing root for their team but let us root for ours. t j j Kanin has no reg-t reg-t Judged lstered political rec-by rec-by ord In Washington Company but he dld PPear as a witness for Carl Aldo Marzani, an Italian-born Communist Com-munist spy who planted himself in the American elenk and dagger service of the army tor non-dangerous duties in the war and twice sneaked Into our state department as an employee. Marzani used a Communist party alias. The Herald Tribune's precious friend, Garson Kanin, 34 years old and safe out of a soft job in the war, said he "couldn't remember" whether he ever was a member of the Joint anti-fascist refugee committee com-mittee which is as red as a fire engine. But then he apparently thought the better of that evasion for he quickly said he was "willing to say 'yes.' " Kanln testified that he and lartanl fought the Battle of Washington for 18 months until le went overseas In May, 1941, and that the spy had a nice reputation rep-utation for "peace and good order or-der and being a law-abiding tltlxen." |