Evening star., 1938-03-03


nouncement is in itself gratifying and
ANYBODY who received either from this
correspondent or anybody else the
impression that Mr.. Roosevelt was
trying to make personal profits should
erase that impression from his mind
and regard it as non-eXistent.
Such correction is essential
because the President through his
secretary now has officially announced
that he will not profit by the sale of
his writings and no matter what went
on before, it is the last statement that
should count.
Handling of News a Mystery.
But when this revision has been
made it still leaves unexplained and
somewhat of mystery the exact
manner in which the news about this
episode was handled in the first place.
When news about the Presidents in
tentions was first revealed the North
American Newspaper Alliance, one of
the biggest of the newspaper stndi-
Gates of the country, sent out the
4OI!OWlllS QlSpdICll'
ITO an inquiry as to whether the
net revenue from the sale of the books
and the magazine and newspaper
rights would so to charity. the answer
from the White House secretariat was
that it would not, and that the Pres
tdent's statement at his press confer
ence covered the whole subject The
assumption is that the proceeds would
60 to the President"
That was three weeks ago Now this
week the White House has authorized
for quotation the following statement:
There has been lot of misrepre-
eentation. There has been no inquiry
and no effort on the part of the news
paper commentators or politicians to
ascertain the facts, but most of them
have written and spoken editorially
and politically charging the President
was using his Office for personal profit
in the writings"
Conflict on Inquiries.
In other words. it now is charged bv
the White House that nobody asked or
inquired what the President would do
with the receipts from the sale of his
writings, and yet the newspaper syndi-
cate above quoted states that such an
inquiry was made and that it met with
q negative answer.
The newspaper correspondents here
abouts are not easily misled, but it
has gotten to be habit for offcialdom
to blame newspapers or mistakes they
do not make. When an administration
gets into a political hole it seeks a
scapegoat, but this is one instance
where the record shows clearly that
the attempt to put the blame on news
papers for Misrepresentation will not
get very far.
In the first place, the fact that
President of the United States while
in office intends to sell books or writ
ings is news of prime importance. and
in view of what has happened in the
past the very first question that popped
into the minds of neWspapermen was,
What is the President going to do
with the money and is it going to
charity?"
Palpable Change of Front.
The White House knew the very first
day the news was given out that the
public would be concerned to know
what was going to happen to the net
proceeds from the sale of the writings.
To wait three weeks, listen to the
rising chorus of criticism and then to
announce blandly that there never
was any intention in the first instance
to make profits is too palpably a
change of front to be swallowed as
just another one of those errors of a
supposedly misguided press.
What probably happened-and this
is pure surmise based on rumors that
have been floating around newspaper
oflces-is that the syndicate which
offered the Presidents writings for
sale found a very cool market, and
that the articles, when auctioned off
in each city, did not bring the bids
they were expected to bring. Ger
tainly newspapers nowadays are too
hard hit by the depression or recess
sion to be spending money to buy
luxuries, and the worked-over state
papers of the President would be
claSsed as luXuries in a newspaper
budget If the prices sought during the
Nv