Evening star., 1934-12-01

"A short. spare, middle-ased man
named Edward N. Jackson" has the
role OF the hero in q profile" OF a
news photographer by Alya Johnston,
on the New Yorker. Jackson has
won diplomatic victories over foreign
potentates and New York City masis-
trates and gunner" and successfully
conducted negotiations Tor pictures
with the Big Four at Versailles. with
the Vatican, with kings, queens.
premisrs and Presidents, with three
Ieigning Newport doWasers. with
Waxy Gordon, with all the ROcke-
fellers and most Of the Morgans, with
the nllrsemsids Of John Jacob Astor,
Sd and Theodore Roosevelt. Sd"
Jackson, his biosrapher says. has
a reverence for the camera. He re-
spects writer's and artists. but feels
sorry for them because they use such
vague implements as pens and
brushes. His attitude toward them is
the attitude of the mathematician
toward professors of ineXact sciences.
In his own opinion. Eddie is a his
torian, and rigidly accurate one;
he deplOres historical writers and
painters. with their loose apprOXima-
tions. Sir William Orpen had some
thing to do with lowering the pho
tographer's opinion of artists. The
two men met at Versailles, where the
Britisher was sketching the Hall OF
Mirrors before the ty-siening, while
Jackson was investigating the photo
graphic possibilities of the place.
Later the cameraman saw Orpen at
work on his celebrated treaty paint
ing. You're putting Balfour in
said Jackson. ''Ile wasn't there that
day" Il know" said the painter.
but l want to have him in In six
months nobody will remember wheth-
er he was there or not" Jackson.
with his allstere feeling for history,
shuddered at the time. and still shud-
ders when he recalls the conversation.
His hi.tory-mskinG zeal has Sis
tanned Jackson through many trials
Most of his camera subjects prove I'M
grateful for the chance he gives them
% make figures in the eyes of posterity.
Eddie's feelings have been wounded
many time by the thanklessness OF
persons he was helping to belong to
the ages. The humiliatiOns he has un-
dersone for the sake of history cover a
wide range. One of the greatest orators
of the time paused in the midst of q
set speech TO bawl Jackson out before
$4,000 people. One of the most
famous Newport queens gave him a
tOngue-lashing. and one of the fore
most girl bandits punched him on the
jaw. Jackson, kicking and fighting. has
been carried away bodily more than
once by his good friend Big Bill Star
ling of the Secret Service because
Jackson was attempting to snap for
hidden pictures of First Ladies. He
has been insulted by king and by
underworld sOrillas. Half q century
hence William Gibbs McAdoo may live
in history only as a pictorial item
illustrating early twentieth century
manners; Jackson has a magnificent
study of McAdoo rushing at him with
distorted visage and uplifted cane.
The orator who arraisned Eddie was
Elihu Root, then keynoting at the
Republican convention Of 1912 Photo
graphing had been forbidden because
of the smoke of flashlights. In order
to get the picture he wanted Eddie
had to let off an explosion which
lighted the entire auditorium. 1t
interrupted Senator Root in one Of
his elaborate periods. Il wish" cried
the Senator, that that man had
stayed at home"
Part of Jackson's greatness is an in
stinctive knowledge of when to go: he
shot out of the convention hall so
rapidly that he left behind his pocket
book, which he had placed on a rail
in order to increase the elevation of
his camera.
The social arbitress who gave him