Washington Is Best School for Aspirants to Sound Journalism

The following article on the value of Washington as a training school for young Journalists was written for the Crimson by H. C. Lodge Jr. '24. Lodge started newspaper work in the Capitol as the State House correspondent for The Boston Transcript, but last year changed to the New York Herald-Tribune, on which paper he now holds the position of correspondent for proceedings in the House of Representatives.

Journalism in Washington is not as good a training school for politics as the layman might think. It seems obvious to the casual observer that in Washington are concentrated not only the legislative and executive branches of the national government but a host of independent commissions making daily decisions affecting the plain citizen in countless ways--all of which seem to afford a political laboratory not to be excelled. Then, the casual observer will say, there are the embassies and the light which they throw on affairs throughout the world.

Why, it may well be asked, with all these far-reaching agencies right under his nose cannot the young journalist gain a first hand and accurate conception of politics which will be invaluable to him when he throws his own hat in the political ring? Unfortunately this young journalist will find no "open sesame".

The fault is not with journalism and in the larger sense the blame cannot be laid at Washington's door. In Washington an intimate knowledge of government and its many-sided problems can surely be acquired, but--sad to relate--it is not an intimate knowledge that gets most men elected to public office.

Knowledge No Election Factor

I have never known the proverbial "dog-catcher" of politics, but I will wager that he was never elected to his high office because of his ability to catch dogs. I have known many senators and mighty few of them were elected because of their ability to pass on treaties, or the tariff, or taxation, or naval and military affairs. It is even doubtful whether presidents are elected on the basis of their understanding of the intricate and often non-sensational problems they are called on to solve. Not that many senators, representatives and presidents have no knowledge of these governmental problems--many of them have. But it is not this knowledge which endears them to the voters. And to obtain and hold office the voter and his local needs are an almost all-important consideration.

It requires no special knowledge to appreciate the truth of this. Anyone who lisa followed a political campaign in the newspapers realizes it. In the recent mayoralty contest in Chicago the issue was King George the Fifth of England--a topic which affected Chicago not at all, of which the voters knew nothing and on which the victorious candidate could not conceivably take any action. Yet he swept into office for that reason.

Last autumn a senator was overwhelmingly elected from a middle western state. The whole question in his election was whether or not he had some 15 years before, punched a certain police commissioner's nose. There are many similar instances, too many to detail here. They all point to the fact that the issue on which a man is elected to public office is frequently one on which he will never pass when he takes office and that if he has the really desirable qualities for his office he has them fortuitously and does not promulgate them to his constituents.

Take that great political issue of whether or not the police commissioner's nose was punched. This was the issue and the successful candidate's handling of it was largely responsible for his victory. But let us not be misled into thinking that this was the only cause. At the bottom of many political victories is the well-organized machine. And this too will not be seen in Washington. The machine, depending on the size of the candidate's campaign contributions and on the skill with which he handles the patronage in his district, is the broad foundation stone on which most office holders rest and which is seldom seen in Washington.

Therefore if our young man wants to go into politics and, as President Coolidge once said, has office holding for his hobby, he had better go to the nearest street corner in the week before election day and make the acquaintance of his ward boss and take his orders from him. He will then be a small cog in the machine of his district and state and depending on his ability to deliver the votes and his knowledge of his bailiwick will be promoted.

Washington, then, shows the observer few of the phenomena which underlies getting-elected to public office. But it does show a great many things, which are more interesting than local practical politics. For the budding journalist it is the real capital of the United States. What New York is to the young financier or playwright, Washington is to the journalist. For it is here that he can see for himself, form his convictions which if he is ever fortunate enough to become editor of a newspaper or by sheer force of personality break into politics at home--a rare thing, by the way--he can use with telling effect.

Here he can see the time-wasting fatuousness of congress, except in rare moments when driven by a vigorous personality; here he can see the president steering his middle course and saying nothing; here he can see underpaid clerks swarming from the grimy and red taped government departments; here he can see overpaid members of the now countless federal commissions making self satisfied and often irresponsible decisions reaching into the every day lives of the plain people of the land; here, in fine, he can delight his eyes with the foreign diplomats and the "dancing boys of the state department". I forgot to mention that here too he can see the correspondents of the opposition press twisting a mere nothing into a first class outrage and can also observe the administration press placing the few short1comings of the present administration in a dignified background.

If our young journalist has eyes in his ain and the similar governing association of athletics in America.

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