Hearst Waves a New Banner

The Sage of San Simcon has a new ace up his sleeve. Not content with prattling against internationalism, he is now devoting his attention to the eradication of college Communism, which, he proclaims, is growing rapidly through the subversive teachings of bearded professors.

Mr. Hearst has a perfect right to resent Communism, but there is sufficient evidence to show that under the guise of this "100 percent Americanism" he is waging a battle against all dissenting opinion. That the methods whereby he attempted to justify his personal ends at Syracuse and Columbia were promptly exposed and condemned does little credit to Mr. Hearst. It does, however, honor a group of prominent educators who were determined to see no intrusion of Fascistic doctrine on the American campus, and justly protested against this effort to stamp out freedom of thought and expression. Mr. Hearst, apparently, is going to encounter more opposition than he has anticipated.

Another professedly "clever move" was to sponsor a Washington meeting of the editors of all college dailies. There they were feted and dined, and then removed to New York to be subjected to the wisdom of some of Mr. Hearst's foremost satellites. Two Washington newspaper men of recognized enterprise asserted this was just his way of pouring syrup after a challenging letter sent him by the Association of College Editors. Mr. Hearst imagined, they declared, that such generosity would make immeasurably easier the progress of the "red scare" among the separate colleges.

Following the conference, "New-Week" claimed the "Hearst-Youth hatchet buried"-as farcical a misstatement as ever appeared in print. It cannot be denied that a few of those present had slightly too much regard for Mr. Hearst's altruism, and were rudely shocked when he was accused of ulterior motives. But the overwhelming majority came and went in firm opposition to his principles and methods. Talks by Hearst-writers Richard Washburn Child and Bainbridge Colby and indirect offers to become wavers of the Hearst banner did surprisingly little to alter their opinion. Drop in the bucket though it may have been, the money which rolled from the Hearstian coffers to smooth the surface can be written in the ledger with red ink. Mr. Hearst, it would seem, is pinning too much faith in human stupidity. The Daily Princetonian.