The Wilmington morning star., 1947-05-29
Bv WESTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, by King Features Syndicate

BY fEOLEh
DOWNRIGHT, by King Features Syndicate ,Inc)
Yesterday l started out to tell you about
an invitation from Bernard Baruch and Herbie
Swope to cocktails with a passel of journals
tic seninarians, but l strayed. down half
for gotten paths to dear old yesteryear and
passed out in Sport Hallahan's Speakeasy I'm
der Brooklyn bridge, 20 years ago.
Well, it certainly does seem comical to be
getting an invitation, and by wire, prepaid,
at thai. from one of the richest fellows in
our country, meaning Baruch, not SWope, al
though Herbie has been a pretty good man at
pairing up aces, himself, to meet a mess Of
other reporters, at Sherry's, 300 Park avenue.
1t didn't used to be like that. Seminarians!
and old Herbie macerating around with them
like as if it was the most natural thing in the
world. And at Sherry's, 300 Park avenue, l
remember when Caruso was supposed to be
dying of Pneumonia at the Vanderbilt hotel,
which wasn't any Buckingham palace, even
then, and we inkstained Wretches on the death
watch had to Wrestle it out with some Teller
in striped pants who thought we might give
the place a bad name and wanted us to
wait outside.
I wonder what they study in this seminar,
but don't bother to tell me. if you know,
because that is just a rhetorical question.
History, TO doubt, and social science, which
is no more science than playing a slot ma
chine and then what about the seminarians?
What do they do, after?
I am always getting letters from college
students, mostly wanting me to go back to
the files and dig out information for them.
The other day there came one from a young
fellow in upstate New York who wanted to
know all about Frank Gannett, the publisher.
Mr.. Gannett happens to be one of the prom
lnent men l have never met so l couldn't
have helped this study-boy even if l had
been willing to, as 1 wasn't. There was this
young fellow about 100 miles from Gannett
but instead of going to see the man he wan
ted to write about, he asked a third persons
opinion.
Swope would tell those seminarians some
thing that won't be IN the book. He would
tell them to meet people and keep a pr
sonal book Of private addresses and unlisted
telephone numbers to know people they don't
like as well as people they admire. I think
Dave Duhinsky is a pretentious political para
site, ana a to the likes of Mrs.
Roosevelt and the old man when he was alive.
I think that stuff about the terrible hard
ships that he and Sidney Hillman and Char
ney Vladek, the old socialist, suffered in the
prisons and eXiles run by the Car is just
publicity. Practically all our dialect union
GERS from that part OF the world had escaped
from captivity to hear them tell it, but you
never saw a healthier lot of prosecuted mar
tyI5 OIL d movie SET. l QOn I even take II
for granted that they ever were in jails Or in
exile, at all. As far as 1 am concerned they
are like those mutually corroborative liars,
the veterans Of the gold rush in Alaska, of
whom Tex Richard said that most of them
hung around hot stoves in saloons and made
their money trimming prospectors when they
came in.
But, whether a reporter likes or doesn't
particularly admire an important or promi-
OaDt rprS0n bo chO111d moot hin, if bo oop
find an occasion. I guess Herbie Swope has
known as many such in his time as any
other reporter in the world. He had a hell
of a nerve, as natural equipment. Nobody
was really as important to him as Herbert
Bayard Swope and don't think that three
passenger name of his was an accident. He
would bust up, to anybody and Herbert often
was inside the club, poking some old goat
in the brisket and advising him how to deal
with the press while the other guys were
warming their cold, blue fingers over the
subway %gratings, waiting for the subject to
come out. Clemenceau was just another
French politician to Herbert and you would
have thought Woodrow Wilson was his as
sistant at the Paris Peace Conference.
Herbie SWope got out of the newspaper
business when the World papers folded and
that is how you happen to find him with
Mr.. Baruch. He is a shrewd man on pub
licity and reticence and public relations and
there are three or four other rich old fell
lows around New York who are just eating
their hearts out in envy OF B. M. BIS I'm
official status as ''elder statesman A little
while back, Mr.. Baruch said our trouble was
that the people were not working and pro-
ducing wealth and he scored in the papers
all over the country. That is what you call
public relations. That office on the park bench
is some more of it. And the party for the
seminarians, most of them out of town jour-
nalists and all pretty well seasoned and
weathered, and for some of the New York
resident talent, would be still more of the
same. For every paragraph that Albert Las
ker gets, B. M. B, gets a page.
Have it any way you like but l say the
best asset in a reporters life is his acquaint-
anceship which widens and widens with ex-
perience and extends like, you know. the rip
pies on a pond. If I want to get in touch
with someone l don't know, maybe Herbie
Swope can send me IN or tell me someone
who can. And, sometimes, when the subject
seems most formidable and the devious ap-
proach absolutely the only way, the simplest
way is the best.
1 guess the whole newspaper business has
read about the time Arthur James Pegler
scooped the town of Chicago for the Ameri-
can by simply walking up to a door and
asking for a picture.
And last winter when Fred .Tisdale was
assigned by a magazine to interview Cardinal
Spellman and all his wires got tangled and
his pipelines clogged, you know what he did?
He pushed that doorbel and the Cardinal
spent as minutes with him and then held
Tizzy's coat and opened the door for him.
Cocktails for the journalistic seninarians at
Sherry's, 300 Park avenue, from five to seven.
1t had come to that, then! Well, l Will put
on cveralls and come up through the furnace
room and pretend l am there to nail down a
loose carpet. A fellow mustn't get soft. They
should have set the .seminarians a problem