TERMS JOURNALISM FRUITFUL ACTIVITY

"Journalism is the best activity to participate in while at college," said Mr. Frank A. Vanderlip, eminent financier and statesman, while talking recently to a CRIMSON reporter. "It is the most valuable training for any career which a man may choose."

Mr. Vanderlip began his own successful career by working on a newspaper. He agrees with Professor C. T. Copeland '82 that journalism prepares a man for his life work.

"Of course," he continued, "our newspapers have their faults as well as their good points. The tendency today is toward bulk. The personal touch is lost because of the unwieldy size of the papers. A paper which prints 'all the news that is fit to print' is too large to be read thoroughly.

"Another tendency is to syndicate the press. The Rothmere syndicate in England controls over 60 percent of the daily papers. Over here Hearst and--on a smaller scale and slightly higher plane,--Munsey, are working along the same lines. As the papers become more powerful and centralized in control, they lose more than ever their individuality.

Individual Columns Offers Opportunities

"It is noteworthy that in a large journal like the New York World, Heywood Broun's column should be the most popular reading in the whole paper. Here is the opportunity for young men to put personality back into the papers. The French newspapers are decidedly smaller than ours, but for this very fact they are infinitely more popular because they show individuality.

"I believe that the present tendency towards standardization will continue till the press is merely a Ford factory turning out so many assembled papers per day. Nevertheless, there is a wonderful chance for a man to develop a different type of paper,--a smaller paper which should tell the truth and comment briefly. Such a man could acquire much journalistic influence within a few years."

Mr. Vanderlip scored the "romantic idea" which a great many college men have of going abroad for a few years after college. "It is much better," he said, "to spend those years in journalism."