No Snakes Allowed

Winnie Winkle the Bread Winner, syndicated comic-strip heroine by Cartoonist Martin Branner, has been on a camping trip. One day, last fortnight, a snake appeared in camp. Her companion yelled: "Don't let that snake get away. One of you pick up a stick or a stone and kill it!" Near the snake was a stick. The last picture showed Winnie waving the snake wildly above her head, the companion screaming: "EEEEEEK! She picked up the SNAKE to hit the STICK with!"

That is the way the strip looked upon its arrival in the office of the Kansas City Times. But readers saw no snake when the strip was published in the Times. In place of the snake appeared a toad, hurriedly scratched in. In place of the stick was a rock. In place of the blurbs were other blurbs: "Don't let that toad get away. One of you pick up a rock or something and kill it! . . . EEEEEEK! She picked up the TOAD to hit the ROCK with!"

Observers investigated, found the reason for the snake-less Times. Great publishers often have pet aversions. Publisher Bernarr Macfadden's aversion is birth control, Publisher George Horace Lorimer's are publicity and social functions. Publisher William Randolph Hearst's is England. Publisher Robert Rutherford McCormick's are people who will not give him his own way. And a pet aversion of Publisher George Baker Longan of the Kansas City Times is wriggly, writhy, slithery snakes. An unflinching rule keeps snakes entirely out of the Times' pages-- out of the news, features, fiction, comics. Other Times rules forbid mentioning or picturing rats, corpses. Journalists wonder: How would the Times report the news if President Herbert Hoover, Col. Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, Scarface Capone or Aimee Semple McPherson were bitten by a snake?