Fawn

One day last week the front page of the New York Herald Tribune, prominent G.O.P. elephant-hide-bound organ, bore the following headline:

CRIPPLED BOY'S DEER IS SEIZED FOR SMITH ZOO

The next "deck" of the headline said:

Conservation Board Accused of Taking Fawn from Child to Make Nomination Fete Gift.

The last, least conspicuous part of the headline explained:

Parent, Saying Son Weeps for Pet, Sure Governor Had No Part in Action.

Non-partisans, recalling that the Herald Tribune had printed something sportsmanlike about Nominee Smith the week previous (TIME, July 9), concluded that now the score was evened. Facts of the crippled-boy's-deer-seized-for-Smith-zoo story were these:

The Herald Tribune had not only the parent's belief, but Governor Smith's secretary's word, that Governor Smith knew nothing of the case.

Not the Conservation Board of New York State, collectively, but its chief game protector, one Llewellyn Legge, and an underling inspector named Morgan Leland, were responsible, individually, for the alleged injustice.

Mr. Legge is a Republican.

Legge and Leland did not know there was a crippled child involved.

Their obvious intent was to please their Governor. The obvious intent of the Herald Tribune's headline was to blackguard him.

When Governor Smith heard what happened, he said: "If the Conservation Department has taken that spotted fawn [which he had named First Ballot] from a crippled boy, I'll send it back to him so quickly, you won't see it for dust. Yes, I'll send him back another one with it and a dog if he wants it."