"In the Name of Paris"

"Get news if you can. If not, make news." Such is the seldom spoken but often implied command of editors to their staffs.

Obedient correspondents and rewrite men "made news" last week concerning the attempted Paris-New York flight of Captains Nungesser and Coli (see p. 26). First, most of the Paris evening newspapers worked Frenchmen into a hysteria of joy by publishing extras which said: "The Atlantic is conquered. . . . Nungesser welcomed in New York Harbor." One sheet gave details of the arrival-- telling how Flyers Nungesser and Coli embraced after landing, said they were happy, tired. All this was inspired by unconfirmed reports which told of an airplane being sighted off the coasts of Newfoundland and New England.

Parisians, having paid bets and celebrated with champagne, naturally experienced a tremendous emotional re-action when later reports announced that the flyers were lost. The evening newspapers blamed the French Government and particularly War Minister Painleve, who had cabled congratulations to the flyers.

Then Paris correspondents for U. S. newspapers began to interpret the French emotions, cabled despatches giving the impression that Frenchmen were "sore" at the failure of their airmen, and had turned their resentment against the U. S., even charging that the U. S. Weather Bureau had sent out false reports of fair weather in the path of Flyers Nungesser and Coli, whereas they actually flew into a storm area. . . . What news! Play it up! Let U. S. newspaper buyers enjoy an orgy of self-satisfaction at their own lofty superiority to Frenchmen obviously suffering from an attack of "sour grapes."

Wilbur Forrest of the New York Herald Tribune, middleaged, seldom spectacular, told Lis readers that an angry Paris mob had demanded the removal of the U. S. flag over the office of Le Matin, that "epithets were hurled and remarks anent the War debts, along with others of a vile character, were heard" in front of the office of the Paris Herald. Promptly, U, S. Ambassador Myron T. Herrick denied any knowledge of this mob behavior.

Some few days later, Le Petit Parisien carried an editorial worthy of perusal by every U. S. newspaper reader:

"Our New York correspondent has sent us a series of extracts "from New York newspapers which we read with stupefaction; our friends across the Atlantic are persuaded that following Nungesser's failure the Parisian population manifested hostility against Americans and that it is ready to receive coldly Chamberlin and Bertaud if they succeed in flying across the Atlantic.

"New York newspapers declare this alleged attitude is inconceivable. We would also call it at least inconceivable if this were really our attitude--it would be much worse, it would be abominable.

"This is why our astonishment is mixed with sadness, that such an abominable attitude should be attributed to us. Neither in the street has the least word been pronounced, the least gesture made, nor in any French newspaper the slightest word written regarding the Nungesser flight which could be considered hostile to America.

"No one has thought of the slightest reproach to Chamberlin and Bertaud for having the daring to do what Nungesser failed to do. If we regret that the first heroes of the New York-Paris flight be not French, no one of us --we can say this in the name of Paris--thought for a minute not to acclaim with all the enthusiasm they merit the admirable men who succeed in this fabulous exploit. . . . What was behind the invention of popular manifestations against America in Paris? Is this another case of false news? If so where does it come from?"