McLean for Noyes

In 1900, Frank Brett Noyes, publisher of the Washington Star, was elected president of the Associated Press. Each year since then, Mr. Noyes has been unanimously reelected. This week, nearing the age of 75, he retired. As head of a news-gathering agency whose 1,400 newspaper members make it one of the two greatest in the world, Frank Noyes for 38 years had carefully avoided expressing opinions on public questions. "Circumstances compel me to be an intellectual eunuch," he explained.

To succeed the aged, conservative publisher of the enormously wealthy, faintly stodgy Washington Star as A. P.'s supervising chief, A. P. directors this week chose the middleaged, conservative publisher of the enormously wealthy, faintly stodgy Philadelphia Bulletin. To the 35,000,000 readers of A. P. dispatches, retiring, even-tempered Robert McLean's election will mean nothing. Like his predecessor, President McLean, steeped in A. P. tradition, will be inclined to go along with any changes proposed by A. P.'s General Manager and executive boss, crisp Kent Cooper. But few shifts in A. P. setup or policies will be directly traceable to its president. The quality of A. P. news, lifeblood of its service, will continue to be determined by the news-gathering abilities of member papers that provide the bulk of A. P.'s news sources.

Such leavening agencies as have crept into A. P.'s service during the past ten years have been initiated chiefly by Mr. Cooper. Not without qualms, A. P. directors have approved comic strips, features, Wirephoto and a general broadening and lightening of the old straight news formula. This week, however, the modernizing efforts of Boss Cooper and the A. P. Board of Directors were stopped by a rank & file revolt. Led by smooth, earnest Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher of the

New York Times, the members turned down a Board committee's suggestion that A. P. sell its news locally for commercially sponsored radio programs.

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