News Letters

"Roosevelt Cabinet gossip. We have collected scores of names, stories, and 'inside tips.' We have sifted, weighed, checked, tested. The residue, given below, should be considered as thoughtful and responsible gossip, but no more. None of the 'sure slates' are any good:

State--Norman H. Davis--65---

Treasury-- Senator Cordell Hull--50%. William H. Woodin--Social-

Justice--Arthur F. Mullen--60%.

Commerce--Don't know.

War--James H. Thompson--60%.

Navy--Senator Swanson--70%.

Agriculture--Don't know; sure Mr. Roosevelt doesn't know.

Post Office--James A. Farley--99%-Interior -- George H. Dern -- 40 J. Bruce Kremer--40%.

Labor--Don't know; sure Mr. Roosevelt doesn't know."

Last week some 10.000 bankers, rail-road officials, textile manufacturers, lawyers, editors, building contractors, food packers and public utilitarians read the foregoing Cabinet guess and found it good. To each it had come in a mimeographed letter from Washington, enclosed in a sealed envelope with a 3-c- stamp. They all were paying $18 per year to receive this and similar information every week. It was the Kiplinger Washington Letter, smartest and most alert of three similar services conducted at the Capital.

The big businessman might have ferreted the same Cabinet gossip out of his daily newspaper if it were not for two fundamental facts. He hates to take time to read long press stories, especially if they are speculative and require thoughtful analysis, and even when he does he is left feeling doubtful about their authenticity because they are in a sheet open to the public for a few pennies. His ears 'Relieve more than his eyes and the gossip of a board meeting he is apt to peddle as "gospel" among his flattering cronies. He honestly thinks that Washington is teeming with "inside stuff" which the Press misses and he, as an able citizen, should have. But the Washington scene as it strikes his untrained eye in headlines leaves him dizzy and confused. To straighten out his perspective and give him the facts he does not bother to hunt out for himself in the daily Press is the prime purpose of the Washington letter writer.

Not all of the weekly Kiplinger letter, issued by Willard Monroe Kiplinger, is as speculative as the Cabinet guess. More typical are Kiplinger's shrewd and crackling appraisals of current news. These he gives in a blunt, crisp style tuned to his client's ear:

"Congress will not vote inflation before March 4.

"New Congress WILL vote inflation around midyear IF necessary to raise commodity prices, IF commodity prices haven't risen by then. Precise method, precise plan is not determinable at this time. . . .

"Budget balance outlook for fiscal year 1934 is not so good. . . .

"Taxes. This session of Congress will not do anything important. . . .

"Agricultural relief will get no final action this session. Domestic Allotment can't be enacted. . . .

"Glass banking bill will pass Senate . . . but there's very small chance of its being finally enacted this session."

Like the other Washington letters, Kiplinger's is based on the assumption that "Readers are pretty well fed up on facts.

They want evaluation, so that the facts will fit together and mean something." Contrary to popular notion, neither Kiplinger nor any other reputable letter service deals in "confidential" information because very little confidential information is available. Kiplinger employs nine full-time staff men who have found that the wisest men in Washington on legislative prospects and administrative policies are lobbyists. They scrupulously canvass the most potent spokesmen on both sides, take time to gauge the political force behind each, check it, make their forecasts. Editor Kiplinger keeps score on right & wrong guesses, computes his staff's average 85% right. Single important piece of legislation so far passed by this Congress was the Philippine independence bill, the Kiplinger prediction to the contrary not- withstanding (see p. 13).

Offices of the agency are in the National Press Building where nine- tenths of each weekly letter is written by Editor Kiplinger himself. He is 42, tall, sandy-haired, with a trim mustache. For several years he worked for Associated Press in Washington, quit in 1920 to research foreign trade for a bank. His task of making weekly reports and his "passion for telling people the 'innards' of things." prompted him to try circulating an impartial analytical letter to businessmen. In addition to his general news letter he publishes a fortnightly on agriculture ($25 for six months), a fortnightly on taxes ($15 per year).

First in the Washington news letter field was the Whaley-Eaton Service, which has now probably the largest circulation. It was founded in 1918 by Percival Huntington Whaley and Henry Morris Eaton. Eaton was onetime managing editor of the defunct Philadelphia Press.

Whaley edited the Evening Ledger. Both were lawyers. They conceived the letter idea after encountering difficulty in obtaining the sort of correspondence they wanted from their Capital newsmen.

Their weekly Washington letter ($25 per year) is a careful reflection of Capital sentiment on fiscal questions, with pros & cons duly weighed. It is long on discussion, short on prediction. In general it takes a long-range view. A half-dozen staffmen maintain personal contacts on Capitol Hill and in. government departments. The letters are compiled in the Munsey Building.

Third in order of age and importance is David Lawrence's Weekly, a printed pamphlet written by the publisher of the factual United States Daily. Editor Lawrence's observations are inclined to be stodgy summations of major trends rather than brisk off-the-record pointers. Up to the election his weekly read very much like a Republican editorial as to why Herbert Hoover should be reelected.

Various other Washington letters have come and gone. Some were frankly "tipster services," flashing advice to clients to invest this way or that on the basis of legislative acts or guesses. Others are simply news letters on a smaller scale than the big three. McClure Newspaper Syndicate issues a confidential collection of slangy jottings called "The National Whirligig--News Behind the News" by Reporter Paul Mallon. W. F. Ardis, one-time associate of Whaley-Eaton, is in business for himself. One which has disappeared was called Federal Trade Information Service. Countless are bulletins published by various trade lobbies, to post members on matters of special interest and to let them know their Washington employes are on the job.

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