The Press: Dropped Shoe

Billy Rose's syndicated column, "Pitching Horseshoes," was missing last week from the New York Herald Tribune (circ. 323,661). The censored column was an open letter to the Metropolitan Opera's general manager-elect, Rudolf Bing, which most of Rose's 350 U.S. papers printed. In it, after noting that Bing had hired Soprano Kirsten Flagstad, who "entertained ... the Nazis," Rose sarcastically nominated Dr. Hjalmar Schacht as Met budget director and Frau Use Koch of Buchenwald as wardrobe mistress. The Trib's lawyers thought the Rose column smelled of libel, and the editors killed it. Miffed, Billy notified the Trib that he would not renew his contract next May. The Trib dropped him on the spot. But Billy had the last word: the New York Daily News (circ. 2,287,337) snapped him up.