Again, Vanderbilt

Pressmen one morning last week sought out a certain Philadelphia hotel bedroom to which they were instantly admitted. The bed was snowed under with newspapers, and amid them sat a young man in blue and white pajamas, whiffing energetically at an after-breakfast cigaret. The reporters bowed deferentially, for this was one of the few species of humanity that reporters respect--a talented member of their own calling, a reporter risen to publisher.

It was tense, wiry Cornelius ("Neelie") Vanderbilt Jr. The Manhattan prints on his bed said that he was just back from Europe, where he had been gathering material--interviews and articles for serial publication--with which he expected to recoup his fortunes, which fell with his newspapers in Florida and California (TIME, May 10).

Young Publisher Vanderbilt soon set his visitors right. He had been to Europe primarily to ask plastic surgeons to cure his jaw of a war-gas infection--which they had failed to do. The interviews he had obtained were "incidental," simply the result of his "reportorial instinct." (The visiting reporters nodded, impressed.) He had flown about Europe, seeing Lloyd George in England, Briand and Caillaux in France, Mussolini in Italy, Pilsudski in Poland, and the onetime Kaiser himself at Doom. The one-time Kaiser had been bitter towards the U. S., had blamed General Pershing (with whom Publisher Vanderbilt had had the pleasure of traveling part way) for ending the War. . . . Pilsudski, the pugnacious Pole, had looked menacing to Russia and Germany. . . . France might soon have a revolution and a dictator. . . . All this would appear in due time in the one Vanderbilt newspaper that is still functioning, the Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News, and later it would be syndicated.

Then Publisher Vanderbilt told his Philadelphia guests something that he had concealed from re- porters in New York. Not only had he been assured by his lawyers (Clarence Darrow, Arthur Garfield Hays, Dudley Field Malone) that progress was being made in the reconstruction of his wealth; not only might he go to court to obtain his patrimony, which is withheld because his father, Cornelius III, "has old fashioned ideas about the newspaper field"; not only was he "wiser for a bad experiment"--chiefly as touched the selection of lieutenants--and determined to conduct his affairs more astutely in the future; but he was. likewise determined, after having built up his California ventures into a new fortune, to turn triumphantly eastward and demonstrate to himself, his family and the world that he is what many already think he is, a potent journalist. He pictured himself buying or starting up a chain of eastern papers, avoiding Philadelphia and Manhattan, and becoming to the Atlantic seaboard what the late Edward Wyllis Scripps was to the Midlands. . . .

Bounding out of bed, dressing impeccably, packing his suitcase, giving instructions to his chauffeur--whom he had gone to Philadelphia to find--vivacious young Publisher Vanderbilt then sped off for Los Angeles, eager for a fresh start on his already eventful career.

From Los Angeles came word that the Daily News had obtained a permit to sell $250,000 of its $500,000 capital stock, but only to Vanderbilt Newspapers Inc. stockholders.

To a gathering of pressmen he explained his note. Yes, he wore makeup. His profession made it necessary. Did he wear bracelets? For reply he held up his wrist, and the golden bands tinkled their momentary music. Sentiment, he said, had sealed their clasps. He would never take them off. "Here, in tender reverie," wrote the star cor- respondent of a moving picture magazine, "Mr. Valentino bent his head. . . ." Discussing the editorial, the head was erect, the reverie was not tender.

"I called him a coward . . . offered to demonstrate that the wrist under a slave bracelet may snap a real fist into his sagging jaw and teach him respect for a man even if he prefer to keep his face clean. . . . This is not publicity. He overstepped all bounds of decency and right thinking. I will go back to Chicago and give him what he deserves. Only one thing can prevent it--he may be feeble, or old, or too young. . . ." Once more the head was bent. "I am waiting," said Mr. Valentino.