Loudspeaker

Harold ("Boake"') Carter was an obscure news commentator for Philadelphia's Station WCAU when he went to Hopewell, N. J. in March 1932 to broadcast descriptions of the frantic search for the Lindbergh baby's kidnapper. Four years later, with the kidnapper awaiting death at Trenton (see p. 20), Broadcaster Boake Carter and his brash news comments had grown to be something of a national institution.

Throughout the month preceding Bruno Richard Hauptmann's electrocution, Carter had relentlessly goaded New Jersey's Governor Harold Giles Hoffman and his henchmen for playing political football with the life of the condemned man. Last week Boake Carter summed up his opinion of such doings by declaring in his sinister British baritone that Hoffman & Co. had "turned Justice upside down and kicked her in the eye."

The official victims struck back at their radio tormenter by distributing about Trenton mimeographed sheets in which they snickered at Carter's "Bond Street elegance and Piccadilly flair," observed that he "flew through the air with the latest of cheese," recommended "more ether" for such radio commentators. Equally irate was Mercer County Grand Jury Foreman Allyne M. Freeman at Carter's implication that politics, not justice, motivated his jurymen. Cried Foreman Freeman: "A cowardly, libelous and malicious lie! I consider his comments an insult to the Grand Jury. I shall never accept a penny nor an ounce of political patronage as remuneration for any statement I ever make about this unfortunate case, and the statements I do make will be based upon facts and will be truthful. Boake Carter. I assume, is being paid for his yellow journal sheet quotations."

Paid and paid well is Boake Carter by Philco Radio & Television Corp., merchandising subsidiary of Philadelphia Storage Battery Co., which gladly puts up $50,000 a year to sponsor his broadcasts of news and editorial opinion, delivered in a melodramatic monotone five evenings a week on the Columbia network.

Not only is Boake Carter currently the most popular of Radio's news commentators, with a rating of 12.6 by the Crossley Survey* he is also far & away the most daring. His freedom to express any partisan opinion that pops into his curly head is the wonder of a notoriously timid industry. However, while Carter's crusty editorializing delights thousands of listeners, it chagrins thousands more, keeps him in a perpetual controversial stew.

Last year Broadcaster Carter's big row was with the Army's General Staff, the Navy's Board of Navigation on the question of U. S. aerial defense. Carter has first-hand knowledge of military aviation, gained in Wartime service with the Royal Air Force; believes the U. S. should have an independent flying corps. When he continued to pepper Washington officials with broadcasts to this effect, jittery patriots spread the word that Carter was a British spy.

Army & Navy intelligence operatives forthwith combed the Carter dossier, found that the Russian-born, English-bred son of a British consular official had been a U. S. citizen since 1933. In Philadelphia they learned that as an inconspicuous reporter on the tabloid News, Boake Carter had begun his broadcasting career by interpreting a Rugby match between two U. S. Marine Corps teams. He continued newscasting free of charge from his pa per's grimy morgue, struck the road to broadcasting 'paydirt when he landed the job of WCAU's news voice. He has been on Philco's payroll since January 1933. Further sleuthing showed that Phila delphia's Carter, who looks a little like Britain's Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, lives quietly with his family in a remodeled farmhouse at suburban Torresdale. He spends six hours on his broadcast script, which no one but his secretary sees before Carter takes the air. and no one sees after he has recited it. Spare time he spends painting away at creditable amateur portraits of his friends, compiling books for the further edification of his large & loyal radio following. Last autumn Boake Carter produced Black Shirt Black Skin, in which he glibly explained all about the Italo-Ethiopian conflict in 178 pages. His next book he permitted his audience to write for him. From typical communications in his fan mail, Broadcaster Carter assembled, and this week published, Johnny Q. Public SPEAKS: The Nation Appraises the New Deal.* "Johnny Q. Public" is a mythical character often exhorted in the Carter quarter-hour evening broadcast. Johnny's communications to Philco's loudspeaker were concerned with appraising the notions of Boake Carter as the New Deal's. Samples:

"I listened to your remarks about the Michigan alien & sedition laws with much approval."

"After listening to your hot air ... who cares what you think of British honor?" "BROADCASTS HAVE BEEN VERY FAIR AND BRILLIANT ON THE TRIPLE A."

"OUTRAGEOUS ATTACK ON SUPREME COURT . . . WAS CLOSE TO TREASON."

*Crossley Survey, no kin to Crosley Radio Corp., thrice daily questions by telephone a statistical sample of U. S. listeners as to what programs they have heard. A program's Crossley rating represents its percentage of listeners queried. Rival commentator Lowell Thomas currently rates 12.1. Of all radio acts, Major Bowes's Amateurs now rate highest with 40.4.

*Dodge Publishing Co. ($2).

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