The Press: Scooper Scooped

Publisher William Randolph Hearst advanced $200,000 to finance the Graf Zeppelin's globe-trot. In return, correspondents for his newspapers and his alone (in the U. S.) were carried on the flight. When Commander Dr. Hugo Eckener steamed up New York Harbor last fortnight on an official welcoming tug after getting back to Lakehurst, eager Hearst photographers snapped him and snapped him; eager Hearst editors spread the photographs on flaring Hearst pages in the grand finale of Publisher Hearst's world "scoop" of the flight.

Last week, the New York Telegram reprinted the photographs of Dr. Eckener on the triumphal tugboat, as a Telegram advertisement. What the Hearst editors had evidently not noticed, what the Telegram had either managed or discovered with journalistic glee, was that Dr. Eckener soon after his return to Lakehurst ("Lake-hearst"), had clenched in his hand a Manhattan newspaper, the name of which was clearly distinguishable in the photographs. Cried the Telegram advertisement: "Note Dr. Eckener's newspaper—The New York Telegram."

Capper Capped

The great political friend of Kansas farmers is slim, grey-haired Senator Arthur Capper. This friendship he cultivates through Capper Publications, including the Topeka Daily Capital, third largest newspaper in Kansas (circulation 42.915)*, and Capper's Weekly, mighty farmpaper (circulation 369,120). Last week The Capital celebrated its 50th anniversary with a monster Golden Jubilee edition containing 164 pages, about 250,000 words.

Among the 250,000, the words "Kansas" and "Capper" ever recurred. Besides the customary news features were six special sections praising the State and its Publisher- Senator. Hymned were Kansas business, buildings, sports, nonagenarians, airlife, roads, history, brass bands, debutantes, geology, wild animals. Described were the Capper publishing plant, genealogy, policies, hopes.

Unlike that more ebullient, cosmopolitan journalist, William Allen White of the Emporia Gazette, Publisher-Senator Capper confines his interest to Kansas. Last week he editorialized: "I pledge for myself and The Capital at least another half-century's wholehearted devotion to the task of making Topeka a greater and better city; Kansas a more prosperous and happier State."

Creager v. Collier's