The Wilmington morning star., 1943-09-02
BY WEsTBROOK PEGLER

BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
NEW Enthusiastically got going on the
SUBJECT OF magazines and their sweatshon
dealings with writers and the arrogance of
VINO work IN the speculative short-story and
arucle market, and today l will give it an
other Whlrl because these publications are
pretty snooty toward our daily press, and
thlnk they have kidded the public into an
unchallenged superstition that thew really are
something special
Dld you happen to see Henry Luce's Time
this week? 1t has piece about Joe Curran
tne president of the National Maritime Union.
VINO put himself aboard ship TO ra cruise
10 foreign parts now that the submarine trou
Die is well under control, and also the picket
line which he threw around the World-Tele
gram Time neglected, of course, to point
OUT mat the pickets weren't all necessarily
sailors and that those among them who were
sailors had to check in and get their union
books stamped to show that they had done
their stuff, as ordered, the same as Musso
I'M S Fasclsts had to record their presence
at those spontaneous popular demonstrations
around the British embassy and ours in Rome
when IL Bum wanted to turn on the heat.
WelI there is picture of Curran and one
OF me and l don't know where they got Cur
rams but the way they got mine is another of
those stories about the journalistic ethics of
magazines.
Several years ago an editor of Life, which
also belongs to Luce and gets its ethical stan
dards from him, got in touch with GEORGE
Bye, the writer's agent. who used to handle
Haywood Broun and who still handles the lit
Tie magazine work that l do. and proposed
an olo1ashloned dirt-road gut-letting between
the pair of us for 81 1000 each He was to
write about me and vice versa no holds
barred. Broun and I were pretty good friends
so we talked it over and decided to take on
the job and faithful to our undertaking. de-
llvered the copy as ordered. There were no
grlmlckS, fire escapes or slpknots in the deal.
Inc editor knew our styles and the quality
OF our stuff and this was a firm order New.
ertheless, little later this guy sent both
stories back to Bye and wanted them rewri-
ten, suggesting that each of us get out the
morgue envelope on the other to enrich the
copy with detail although we lived onlv .
few miles apart, had played poker together
maybe so times and had known each other
since 1917
We both got sore and told Bye to ask the
guy II ne was going to keep his agreement
or WEIGH on it. Anyway, neither of us was
gong to DO the job over and we didn't
Meantime, like dope, not knowing as much
L
send a photographer up to my place. which
lime calls an 'estate"-and if you think that
IS an estate you ought to see Luce's PALACES
ana MS pied terre in the Waldorf tower
TO get some pictures to dress the story Thew
LOOK some OF Haywood, too, at his lake.
so, when the guy WEIGHED on his order T
demanded the pictures back and he hedged
first saying that the pictures were the bnsi'
ness OF another department, which is an old
dodge of the Luce outfit, and later that
mad no interest in them and no right TO de-
mand them back.
l insisted nevertheless that the pictures were
obtained only on my understanding that thew
were to be used to dress the story which is
hao ordered and then refused to pay for and
gave him such a contest that eventually he
sent them back and the original films too
But knew they weren't on the level down
there SO l kept an eye on them and. sure
enough, after while when 1 might have
forgotten about the pictures. one of t h e m
showed up, not in Life but in Time. There ;s
people SO I let it go. Anyone who would do
such thing in the first place can't be reached
by an appeal to journalistic ethics
Then, this week, opposite Curran's picture
they ran another one of those that thew held
out when the guy pretended to give I'm The
batch obtained part of the Broun deal
know it is one of that batch, but if 7 didn,t
know it there would be a giveaway in the
outline under the picture which says "Peg1er
on a lake. @i'
Now the picture is just head against .
blurred background and you Can't tell fl At
the background is a lake, but they know if
because it was taken against lake and the
whole picture shows shot of the water.
You are helpless in dealing with such neo-
pie ana you can protect yourself to the extent
OF having nothing to do with them. bit ~
hear Luce sound off you might get an entirely
different idea. '--e lS