Evening star., 1939-04-26
Publishers Urged
To Work Together 10
Increase Efficiency
Newspaper Must Be
Free and Financially
Competent, Says StohImon
By the Associated Press.

ousPSASutS SOyS StOuiIuOtI
By the Associated Press.
NEW YORK, April 26.-President
James G.. Stahlman of the American
Newspaper Publishers Association
said today that the capacity of the
press to resist criticism, misjudg-
ment and assault" lay in the meas
urer of coincidence and respect
which we may deserve and receive
from the public and in our financial
ability to provide the services re-
quired of u.s.
In an address before the associa-
tion's annual convention, Mr.. Stahl-
man, who is publisher of the Nash
vile (Tenn) Banner, added the
press must "at all times strive to
render the highest type of public
service"
At the same time he said, pub
fishers must work together unceas-
ingly to increase the efficiency of
our operations and to endeavor to
win for the daily newspaper a share
of advertising appropriations COM
mensurate with its capacity to serve,
to stimulate and to foster the legiti-
mate activities of American busi-
ness"
Must Regain Revenues.
The time had come, he declared,
when "the newspapers of this coun-
try must bring their dollars, their
influence and their enthusiasm to
the task of regaining the leeway in
advertising revenues lost through
failure to adequately meet the
changing currents of abnormal times
which less favorably endowed COM
petlng media have so successfully
turned to their advantage"
"The daily newspaper" he went
on. occupies a unique place in the
social, political and economic life
OF the Nation. To discharge its
duties and serve the public salts
factorily it must be free and finan-
cially competent. It's freedom, which
Is not primarily the privilege of the
publisher, but the prerogative of the
reader. must be safe-guarded at
continual cost and sacrifice against
predatory interests, political and
private, by whom it has been assailed
from the time the printing press
was invented down to the present
day.
If there is one thing that is
badly needed it is a public relations
campaign on the part of the news
papers of this country. We do more
to promote the other fellows busi-
ness and less to promote our own
than any crowd I know.
Must Promote Newspaper.
1--WE must not only promote the
newspaper as a. medium for the ad-
vertiser, but we must continue to
sell it to the people as an agency
of free expression and as their
valued public servant. We must
present a united front to the
blatherskites and demagogues. The
press not only must assert its free
dom, it must constantly defend 1t.
During the morning session the
A. N. P. A. announced the resigna-
tion because of poor health of Lin
coin B. Palmer, for 35 years its gen.
eral manager. and the selection of
Cranston Williams, manager of the
Southern Newspaper Publishers As
sociation. to succeed him. Mr.. Will
liams' Office at present is in Chat
tanooga, Tenn.
Aside from the presidential ad-
dress, the association heard the re-
ports of six committees-on the
Wage and Hour Act by w. F. Wiley
Of the Cincinnati Enquirer, on the
newspaper boy by H. w. Stodghill
of the Hearst newspapers. on the
Social Security Act by A. V. Miller
of the New York Herald Tribune,
on cooperation of press, bar and
radio by Paul Bellamy of the Cleve-
land Plain Dealer; on Federal laws
by Wiley and on schools of journal
ism by Jerome D. Barnum of the
Syracuse t-Standard.