TIME Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.

Current subscribers for full access. Not a TIME subscriber? .

National Affairs: Midge

Last week in a red brick house on a Washington hilltop a man strove to out-midge the midge in public unimportance. He wanted to hush all mention of his name. The only shadow he wanted to cast was his own wavering outline against the library wall opposite the open fire.

Outside his door newsgatherers stood ankle-deep in slushy snow, their collars turned against a winter wind zipping up the S Street hill. Moved by pity and mischief, Congressman Black of New York offered in the House a resolution to appropriate $5,000 to build the newsmen...

Quotes of the Day »

RAY KELLY, New York City Police Commissioner, on the arrest of a New Jersey man in one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases, the disappearance more than three decades ago of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
For use in rail of Articles page or Section Fronts pages. Duplicate and change name as necesssary to distinguish.