Reform?

Lee Shubert, producer of shows as salacious as public opinion will stand, once retorted to people who proposed stage censorship: "Well, if you have a censorship for the theatre, why not for newspapers? Newspapers dish out as much dirt, whenever there is a spicy trial on, as plays ever do. You sell the newspaper to any kid who has two cents but you have to pay $2.20 up to maybe $9.90 to see a brothel operating across the footlights. That puts it beyond reach of the kids. If censorship of the theatre, why not of the press?"

Last week the unabashed Mr. Shubert was quoted and seconded by no less celebrated a creature than the Patterson-McCormick New York Daily News. First-spawned of the tabloid brood, the News was at last revolted by tabloid practice. It not only condemned its smut-brothers, the Mirror and Graphic, but said: "Far be it from us to pin a lily on our coat. The News also has gone too far. But the point is this ... as long as there is more newspaper circulation in more smut, some presses will be found to roll out the smut. Some unusually ruthless manager or editor leads the parade toward smut's farthest boundary line. . . ."

In other words, the Editor of the Macfadden Graphic had conclusively proved himself more "unusually ruthless" than the editor of the Daily News. In other words, the News could no longer compete in the smut-fest it had started. In other words, the News wanted to play another game. In other words, public opinion against the smutty tabloids was so violent that it looked as though a real reaction might set in. There would soon be more money in less smut. The News therefore jumped the way it thought public opinion was going to swing. It begged the authorities to intervene. It begged to be "made decent," representing itself as penitent and willing though helpless. And it planned out its new career of seemliness. It acquired an Associated Press membership. It let hints seep abroad to this effect: the News would soon change its size from a five-column tabloid to an eight-column newspaper. By virtue of its penitent stand for conservatism it got itself called (by the Fourth Estate--newspaper trade journal) "The Times of the tabloids," a title accurate enough as a comparative but absurd as a definitive. And while the true depth of public revulsion to the tabloids remained unknown, while authorities pondered intervention and chastisement, what did "The Times of the tabloids" do? Published, in a single issue, the headlines: "ARREST DADDY IN NEW CASE," "KIN DEMAND FACTS IN MODEL DEATH," "YOUTH HELD AS ABDUCTOR," "CONVICT FLEES AT MOTHER'S DEATHBED; HUNTED AT BURIAL." Published, in the same issue, a leggy front-page picture of one Marcia Estardus, "theatrical type," with the caption, "SAYS HARRY THAW BIT HER," and excerpts from the young lady's testimony: "He was crazy. He grunted and screamed as he rained blows on my body. I was groggy. Then he grabbed me and, like an animal, sank his teeth in my arm. While I tried to fight him off he knocked me down and bit me in the legs."