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THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
15
The most sensational book of
year is “Mirrors of Washing
ton,” whose expose of politics,
i liticians and society in the cap-
tal city has caused bitter yyio-
,units for many notables. Here
with the anonymous author of
that volume gives his impressions
,,f tiro of the outstanding Jewish
n e xvspa per correspoyidents i 11
Washington. We take no respon
sibility for the views expressed,
hut publish the article because it
}>rcsent8 a different view thayi the
fulsoyne praise ordinarily asso
ciated with their biographies.
This is published by special ar-
rangeyyient with Horace Liveright.
The famed Gridiron Club is neither
promiscuous in its membership nor
ebullient in its internal affairs.
To a select and numbered band. Its
active roll is restricted to fifty mem
bers who are supposed to be working
Washington correspondents.
The Gridiron Club has two unwrit
ten rules. No Jews are admitted to
its sacred ranks and no reporters are
ever present at its revels. Both re
strictions have been broken.
Charles Michelson, for many years
the brillinat chief of the Washington
bureau of the New York World, and
now the $25,000 a year Publicity Di
rector of the Democratic National
Committee, who has performed mira
cles in rejuvenating that long mori
bund institution, was elected to mem
bership through the influence of one
°f his staff.
Hut since then no other Jews have
gotten by the holy portals, much to
the secret travail of such exalted
press gures as “Freddy” Wile and
Dave” Lawrence, both members of
the proscribed race.
Hike many of the most prominent
ewspapermen in the capital, Frederic
W illiam Wile got his start in Chica-
Lr °- Although a Jew, he is a graduate
"t Notre Dame University and one
f its best known non-athletic alumni.
W ile went abroad early in his press
areer and there made his reputation
the Berlin correspondent of Lord
S,, rthcliffe’s Daily Mail. During his
foreign service, Wile traveled exten-
'Hely and in high official circles.
After the War, he came back to
the United States as a Chautauqua
turer and then became chief of the
ublic Ledger bureau. He lost this
1 >• He promptly set up his own press
< ndicate and concentrated on radio
<'\\s broadcasting. In both these
• Ids, his acute eulogistic faculties
ave had unlimited scope and he has
rospered handsomely.
^ ile is one of the most industrious
nen in the press corps. He is always
' rreting out new ways of earning a
! iendly dollar. In addition to his
'" s broadcasting, he writes a thrice-
yekly column that goes to a string
papers, and does special articles
i editorials on foreign affairs for
Washington Star. These adhere
.•ally to the Star’s unbroken policy
never saying anything of any im-
’tance or vigor on any subject.
’ or his weekly fifteen-minute news
l oadcasts over the Columbia system,
A ne gets $250 a week. He left the
ational Broadcasting Company, with
hich he got his start as a radio
Mirrors Of Washington
I wo Noted Jewish Newspapermen
Oncensored Reflections on
Written for The
news discourses to go to Columbia
'vhen they offered him an increase in
pay which National refused to meet.
W ile is also a zealous public speaker
and makes numerous talks about the
country on Washington, for the best
fee he can get.
“Freddy,” as he is known in the
capital, is the most successful and
persistent goer-out in the press
corps. There are few functions that
go off without his presence. And he
always repays these favors with eulo
gistic pats-on-the-back in his gossip
column.
This column is the sweetest and
most sugary writing in the capital.
It exists only to bloom dear little
buttercups of compliments and good
wishes. If, by rare inadvertence, an
infeiential note of criticism should
creep into it, Wile more than makes
up for it in his following dispatch.
Once he had a paragraph about
Senator “Jim” Reed that a friend of
the Senator’s jokingly told Wile might
make him angry. In his next column,
Wile extended himself in acclaiming
Reed and enumerating all his sterling
qualities.
One of Wile’s greatest gifts is his
ability to discover administration vic
tories. So successful has he been in
Southern Israelite
this respect that he proudly displays
on his office wall a letter signed by
Mr. Hoover commending him for his
great assistance.
Naturally all this industry and
these exceptional talents have paid
Wile well. He has his own limousine
and chauffeur and is one of the fore
most of the select group of $25,000-
a-year correspondents.
David Lawrence is an even more
shining example of what unremitting
application, business acumen, and re
spectful regard for high authority
and position will do for an ambitious
man.
Lawrence was a reporter once—
and one of the very best in the game,
too—but today as the result of the
happy combination of the aforemen
tioned talents, he is an editor, owner
and publisher. He owns a home off
Massachusetts Avenue, which is not
surpassed by that of any Cabinet
member, commands his own yacht,
and has a limousine for his wife and
a gleaming roadster for himself,
both of the most expensive make.
He is very much of the $25,000 a
year group, but with an income that
is nearer $125,000.
Lawrence began life as a newsboy
in Buffalo. He obtained his education
Tlu> Russian Sphynx Spanks
(Continued from Page 7)
themselves for entrance into the pro
letariat and have illegally held fast
to their entrepreneurships. Granted
that not all have found things easy.
But it would be a miracle if every
last person were made contented and
happy inside of thirteen years! Two
thousand years of religion haven’t
been able to produce that miracle.”
Regarding Anti-Semitism, Pilnyak
had this to say: that in the U. S. S. R
it was looked upon as an offense equal
to that of counter-revolution, because
it was one of the evils carried over
with other evils from Czarism that
were being eradicated. Anti-Semitism
was being fought by government,
press, and intelligentsia as an out
growth of the master—and—slave
system, and was punishable with a
heavy jail sentence.
Yiddish still thrives in Jewish
communities, avows Pilnyak, although
he is unfamiliar with the language
and could not speak about it with any
certainty. But there are many Jewish
writers producing Soviet literature in
the Russian language, including Babel,
Ilja Ehrenburg, Libinsky, and others.
“One of the best friends I have,”
he remarked, “is the Jewish-Russian
poet, Boris Pasternak, whom I con
sider to be the greatest living poet in
Europe.”
Considering vague and groundless
charges of Anti-Semitism that have
been filed against Pilnyak, his warm,
appreciative tone, in discussing Jews,
was highly revealing and significant.
As a matter of fact his father’s
mother was of German-Jewish stock,
his ancesors coming from Germany
to colonize the Volga region in the
middle of the eighteenth century!
Therefore, he is himself partly Jew
ish, though in appearance he is the
typical Russian, tall, broad, blond, and
vigorous of tone.
To close the brief interview, Piln
yak told of a trip he once took to
Palestine. On the boat, leaving the
Soviet Union, were some five hundred
Jews. Understanding that these peo
ple left partly in protest against the
new order, Pilnyak observed them
to be either chalutzim, who had long
dreamed of a socialistic life in the
“Jewish Homeland,” or old pious Jews
who preferred to die in Palestine than
in the godless land of the Soviets.
Returning to the U. S. S. R., how
ever, Pilnyak found himself again in
the company of about five hundred
Jews; this time, coming to the Soviet
Union. The answer to the perplexing
riddle lay in the fact that these were
mostly young men and women with
communistic leanings who had been
disillusioned by Palestine as a home
land for the Jews, and who were
planning to join the Jewish colonies
of the Crimea and Biro-bidjsn in So
viet, Russia.
To Pilnyak these two opposite cur
rents of immigration made clear the
whole question of the Jews in the
Soviet Union. The old ones, steeped
in custom and tradition, perhaps
would never reconcile themselves to
Communism. But the young ones wel
comed the new system eagerly in the
hope of becoming full-fledged, recog
nized members of the proletariat and
the new plan of life.
“And the future belongs to the
rising generation, to the youth. . .
Copyright 1931 by S. A. F. 8.
strictly by his own toil and ingenuity
as a reporter. It was as a student at
Princeton that he formed the friend
ship with Woodrow Wilson which
stood him in such good stead when,
years later, he was a Washington
correspondent and the professor was
President of the United States.
After the War, Lawrence had the
business genius to see that a boom
was rapidly crystallizing and that
there would be enormous popular in
terest in stock market quotations and
special business articles. At that time
only a small number of afternoon pa
pers carried a full stock market re
port or any kind of a business ser
vice.
Lawrence organized such a service.
He gathered a staff of experts, set up
a fast stock report, and hammered
away at editors until he sold his
idea. With the rising tide of “pros
perity” and stock speculation, his
service became a success and he cash
ed in.
He then turning to establishing the
United States Daily, the idea for
which he got from a colleague. De
spite large doubts among newspaper
men, Lawrence has kept the unusual
paper going for more than five years.
At times it has been reported in hard
straits, but so far he has kept its
head above water. Early this year it
was reported that he obtained $1,000,-
000 from the Laura Spelman Fund.
I his did not, however, prevent him
from cutting the salaries of his staff
in March.
Lawrence is absolutely ruthless in
keeping himself to the fore in his
organization. No one else, not even
William Hard, who works for him, is
allowed to use the daily leased wire
for transmission of articles. No one
is permitted to dim the standing of
the chief.
Yet, despite this sensitiveness,
Lawrence is devoted to his friends.
He may have curtly discharged, with
a two weeks’ notice, the man who
gave him the idea for the United
States Daily, when the latter absent
ed himself without notice for a week
from his work, but two of Lawrence’s
boyhood school chums who defended
him when bullies baited him as a Jew
hold lucrative life jobs in his organ
ization.
With all his material success and
extraordinary business achievement,
I^awrence is not a particularly happy
man. hor one thing he is not popular
among the correspondents. He is too
commercial for the taste of the true
reporter.
Then he is trying to do too much.
Besides publishing the United States
Daily, speaking over the radio once
a week, and running a news syndicate,
he attempts to keep up his daily
\N ashington dispatches, which are
now little more than editorialized re
writes of the morning papers.
I he result is that he who once was
renowned for his exclusive Washing
ton dispatches is now shoved onto a
back page or not used at all, even by
the Washington Star. And the Hoo
ver Administration, despite his tena
cious fealty, has publicly rebuked him
for inaccuracy.
Copyright 1931 by S. A. F. S.