Press v. Dictator

Almost as vigorous a sentinel over Press rights as Editor Marlen Pew of Editor & Publisher is Dean Carl William Ackerman of Columbia University's School of Journalism. Last week Dean Ackerman made his annual report to President Nicholas Murray Butler, told him that the Press had averted a U. S. dictatorship under NRA; that General Johnson, unable to control newspaper editorials, had used Radio and Cinema, more complaisant organs, toward that end.

The fight against "dictatorship" occurred when newspaper publishers insisted on eliminating all licensing provisions from their NRA code (TIME, Aug. 28). Said Dean Ackerman:

"With the Roosevelt Administration in a position to control the radio; with an almost equal power over motion pictures, and with public emotion stimulated to such a tense state that public meetings must of necessity reflect the spirit as well as the letter of inspired governmental propaganda, the only possibility of the U. S. escaping a dictatorship was inherent in the fight of ... journalism for public recognition of the freedom of the Press. . . .

"In the evolution of public opinion there comes a time when mass action must be sustained and supported by the convictions of that intellectual and responsible minority which thinks before it turns from leader to leader or jumps from cause to cause. ... By concentrating upon the radio and motion pictures . . . and by discouraging free discussion of economic policies, General Johnson has swayed the masses by fear and created doubts in the minds of the intellectual minority whose support is essential to recovery. . . .

"The fact should be recorded that any government in Washington may, if it wishes, use the radio to build a backfire in American homes against any individual, business or institution."

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