POETIC LICENSE

Mayors, it would seem, are definitely misleading persons. When the mayors of 84 towns and cities in Massachusetts met in Boston last Saturday and tried to be coherent on the matter of the $100,000,000 public works program sponsored by Governor-elect James M. Curley, the impression they gave to gentlemen of the metropolitan press was remarkable in its many-sidedness.

It seemed to one local paper that the officials were unbounded in their enthusiasm to get at Curley's project. "Boston Takes Lead In Curley 100 Million Dollar Job Plan." "Mayors of State Eager To Push Public Works," were headlines for the columns of the Boston "Advertiser" front page. The Boston "Globe," with gentlemanly discretion, intimated that the convention had not been highly in favor of the Curley scheme thus: "Mayors Shy On Big Work Loans." "84 Communities Would Consider If U. S. Pays Half." Courageous and forthright was the Boston "Sunday Herald." "Mayors Reject Curley's $100,000,000 Housing Proposals," it said.

If one reads the Boston papers at all, it is well to read more than one of them. Because somewhere between or among the reports of the day's news as set forth in their respective columns, the actual facts of an event are apt to creep in. Differences of editorial policy are common and acknowledged, yet it is not often that one is treated to such marvelously varied front-page "interpretations" of the same news story.