Libel

William Evans, publisher of the Valley Vigilant, weekly newspaper of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., was sentenced last week to three months in the county jail, fined $100. His offense: criminal libel of a County Commissioner during a political campaign. Libel convictions are rare in the U. S.

Patrician Press

Brown and trim are the doorsteps of Albany's patrician houses. Brown and trim are the minds of the Dutchmen who live along State Street, Chestnut Street, Washington Avenue. They look back over 300 years of unbroken tradition to Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, first of the patroons to sail across the ocean and up the Hudson to the trading post of Fort Orange.

Albany's Dutchmen are leisured: they have no need of tabloids. They are retiring and shun society columns. Screaming headlines are monstrosities no less offensive than the maunderings of Dorothy Dix. Most newspapers would flutter uncomfortably on their trim, brown doorsteps.

Happily for all, Albany has managed to furnish at least one and sometimes two newspapers which could nestle securely against Dutch welcome mats. Such a newspaper was the Argus, which traced its beginnings back to 1813. Such a newspaper, in the evening field, was Thurlow Weed's famed Albany Evening Journal, staunch bulwark of Republicanism.

But in 1921, the Argus sold out to The Knickerbocker Press, which dated only from 1842. And in 1922, The Knickerbocker Press started the Albany Evening News, which used youthful and vigorous methods to crush the Journal. By 1925, Argus and Journal had both made reluctant exits.

Some salve to Dutch sensibilities has been the ownership of the Press and News. For the Press passed, in 1911, into the hands of able, blunt Judge Lynn John Arnold, who published it for the Clark family (Singer Sewing Machines) of Cooperstown. Young, rich Stephen Carlton Clark had married Susan Hun, descendant of brownest, trimmest Albany ancestors. Many a cousin, many an inlaw, would write indignantly to Owner Stephen when the Press, and later the News, failed to be brown and trim.

Perhaps because he was tired of indignant, cousinly notes, perhaps because he was little interested in journalism, Owner Clark began, last year, to dicker for a sale. He refused $1,600,000. He approved the building of a new mechanical plant, purchase of new presses.

Last week, he sold out to Publisher Frank Ernest Gannett, owner of 13 newspapers, third largest chain in the U. S. It was Publisher Gannett's third important buy of the year. The first, The Hartford Times (TIME, Feb. 6), cost him $5,000,000. Last June (TIME, June 18) he bought the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle. Price: $3,500,000. The Knickerbocker Press and Albany Evening News bring his year's investments well above $10,000,000. Publisher Gannett's newspapers are known as "clean," "wholesome" and "non-partisan."

Comings & Goings

Swope. He is a 46-year-old red-headed cyclone. He is crazy over croquet, and an uncrowned champion at it. When he talk? he almost snorts. He can lick anybody in the world at any question game, and is proud of it. He is rich enough to buy all the zoos in the U. S., if he wants to. But, more than anything else, he is a red-hot newspaper reporter. Name: Herbert Bayard Swope.

He resigned, last week, as executive editor of the New York World, effective Jan. 1, 1929. That position he had attained because he was and is a red-hot reporter. He got on a train once and came back with a present for Manhattan--the Democratic National Convention of 1924. Recently, he uncorked Dr. Work's renewal of the Salt Creek oil lease (TIME, Oct. 29).

Mr. Swope says that it is a "bitter wrench" for him to leave the World, that Publisher Ralph Pulitzer remains his warm friend. But he also says: "I didn't wish to remain a hired man too long. ... I want to be master of my own destiny. . . ."

No one knows for certain the next move of Cyclone Swope. He may buy or start a New York newspaper. And his newspaper may be tabloid in size, condensed in style, intelligent in appeal. Whatever he does, he will have fun doing it.

The successor of Mr. Swope on the World will be Ralph Renaud. now managing editor of the New York Evening Post.

Herbert Bayard Swope and Gerard Swope, president of the General Electric Co., are brothers.

Kaufman. The New York Daily Mirror* began last week to print daily editorials by Herbert Kaufman, announcing his salary as "the highest word rate ever paid in journalism." But Mr. Kaufman's words are fewer than Arthur Brisbane's and set in far bigger type. Specimen Kaufmanisms:

"These United States are the answer to Old World hungers for full expression of personality."

"[At the Grocery Store.] Bins of romance and shelves of adventure! Come, peep into the packages and sacks. Here's treasure trove for imagination. ... A jeweled anaconda slithered her dread length across the plantation where yonder sack of coffee grew...."

Mr. Kaufman is 50. His stuff has long been syndicated in the U. S. and England. Many nice things have been said about him; someone dug out several dozen of the nicest for a testimonial advertisement published by the Daily Mirror. Mr. Kaufman himself has written some Hoover campaign advertisements, using words of a type that might tickle the tabloid mind. One Hoover advertisement suggestive of the Kaufman touch, spoke of "financial paronia" observable in the U. S. in 1920. There is no such word. The advertisement was almost certainly trying to say paranoia.

*Recently purchased by Albert J. Kobler, who advertised the fact with: "I only bespeak the patience of friends and public for time to 'Build My Rome.' " (TIME, Sept. 24.)