Ghosts Talk

Last week, the University of Virginia's Institute of Public Affairs at Charlottesville heard two speeches on freedom of the press from two men whose speeches are usually delivered by others and whose major concern is freedom of publicity.

They were the Democratic National Committee's brilliant chief press agent, Charles Michelson, whose first feat was to smear Hoover, and his G. O. P. counterpart, Franklyn Thomas Waltman Jr. Dark, 35-year-old Republican Waltman paid elaborate tribute to the libertarian legacy of Democratic Patron Saint Thomas Jefferson, worked himself into oratorical fervor: "We recall Jefferson's words tonight, not solely out of academic interest in a mighty battle which was won in behalf of the liberties of Americans, but because once again in this country, as abroad, freedom of press and freedom of speech is under attack--indirect, subtle attack, if you please, but nevertheless an attack which will destroy these foundation stones of our liberty unless it is repulsed."

Grey, 69-year-old Democrat Michelson, who has seen four Republican publicity ghosts come & go since he took over in his shop in 1929, denied that the free press was in peril but conceded that newspapers "love to trifle with the idea." Recalling a time when corruption of the press was common, and looking forward to a day when all newspapers would live up to the code of ethics observed by the best, Mr. Michelson mused: "But even in that better day, if it ever arrives, I darkly suspect that whenever the occasion offers, the press will rise in a body to shadowbox with a nonexistent peril and write about the freedom of the press as if a glowering giant were awaiting an opportunity to club it into helplessness."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.