Such Language!

The New York Post thinks so much of columnists that it runs 15 of them. All of them fit comfortably into the Post's political frame: New Dealism. Even so, the Post last week found the opinions of two of its top columnists, Dorothy Thompson and Edgar Ansel Mowrer, more than it could bear. The offending pair were thereupon taken to task by Post Editor Ted O. Thackrey. In a hotly phrased, 1,000-word, two-column blast, Editor Thackrey wrote with the air of a man asking himself: is this what I have been publishing?

For several weeks, said Editor Thackrey, he had given her "space for her verbal tears of compassion for the ordinary Germans," although her views were "repugnant." Now Editor Thackrey baldly questioned her credentials as an expert: "Miss Thompson persuaded us once before . . . that Hitlerism would never be accepted by the German people."

Replied Miss Thompson, in effect: Editor Thackrey doesn't know a straddle when he sees one. Said she: "In the article referred to, written in 1931, I weighed the pros and cons . . . and threw the weight of my argument against the probability of Hitler obtaining a parliamentary majority. But in the concluding sentence of the article, I again left the question open."

The other target was hit even harder. Columnist Mowrer had accused the Vatican of "supporting fascism against democracy" before the war, and wanted to know the future political designs of U.S. Roman Catholics. Such language, said Thackrey, who had printed it, was "intolerant . . . designed to insult his fellow Americans of the Roman Catholic faith." It was "stupid . . . Ku Klux Klanism, and worse. . . . No conscious fascist could have phrased it better." At week's end Mowrer had not chosen to reply in print. Said he: "Of course I could go down and talk it out with Thackrey, but my tailor hasn't got my Ku Klux uniform ready."

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