National Affairs: Republicans on Radio

Ever since the New Deal began, Republicans have grown more & more convinced that for all practical purposes the Radio was a Democratic monopoly, that censorship was being enforced on anti-Administration criticism. Last week Publisher Ogden Mills Reid of the New York Herald Tribune supplied his fellow G. O. Partisans with a bill of particulars on which they could argue their conviction during the coming campaign.

Trouble started last May when Mr. Reid's Herald Tribune editorialized as follows:

"The radio, controlled by the Administration through its licensing power, was made the spokesman of the New Deal and largely restricted to Government propaganda." Stung by this direct shot, the Federal Radio Commission promptly adopted a resolution "requesting" Publisher Reid to present "any facts or other material" in support of Herald Tribune's editorial. As a matter of "principle," Publisher Reid respectfully refused to render the commission "an account concerning our editorial comment," tartly calling attention to the First Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing free press and free speech. By way of answer, however, the Herald Tribune last week published a series of four articles documenting its thesis that there was no such thing as free air.

Handmaiden, Drummer Boy— Because there is a physical limitation on the number of commercial frequencies, Congress in 1927 passed a law declaring the air waves Government property. Wave lengths are merely "loaned" broadcasters for six-month periods. On the grounds that stations do not serve "public interest, convenience and necessity," the Radio Commission may at any time refuse to renew a license. Last week the Commis sion received unfavorable renewal reports on three experimental stations of Henry Ford, no friend of the New Deal. Result, claimed the Herald Tribune, was that radio served "as handmaiden and drummer boy to whatever Administration happens to be in power.

"Facing a possible death sentence on his expensive property every half year, it is only human that the broadcaster should endeavor, as the popular phrase so prettily puts it, not to stick his neck out." Taken by the Tribune as a direct warning to broadcasters to pull in their necks was the announcement by Radio Commissioner Harold A. Lafount last August: "It is the patriotic, if not the bounden and legal duty, of all licensees . . . to deny their facilities to advertisers who are disposed to defy, ignore or modify the codes established by the NRA."