Conant, Frankfurter Dine With Nieman, Fellows as Journalists Begin Study

Appointed last May to be the successor of Archibald MacLeish an Curator of the Nieman Collection of Contemporary Journalism, Louis M. Lyons, Nieman Fellow from the Boston Globe last year, launched the 1939-40 season of the Fellowships during the past weekend with a series of dinner meetings and personal conferences with the 12 newspapermen chosen by the University to be Nieman Follows for the coming year.

Friday noon President Conant gave a luncheon for the Nieman Fellows and Friday evening the first of the regular Nieman dinners was held at the Signet Society's clubhouse. Featured speakers at Friday night's were Archibald MacLeish, now Librarian of the Library of Congress in Washington; Ralph M. Ingorsoll, former member of the staff of Time, Inc.; and Mr. Justice Felix Frankfurter, who attended many of the dinners last year and showed considerable interest in the work of the Nieman Foundation.

Lyons Veteran Reporter

Mr. Lyons, in addition to caring for the Nieman Fellowships and presiding at the Nieman dinners, will continue to work for the Boston Globe, with which he has been connected for 10 years. He is a graduate of Massachusetts Agricultural College and has also done graduate work at Harvard.

Last year there were only eight Nieman Fellows and, with 12 now on the list, the number of dinners has been cut from 30 to 20. Chosen from 209 applicants in 39 states, the 12 Fellows this year will be studying mainly fields relating to history, government, and economics.

The fellowships, which carry stipends approximating each recipient's salary, are designed to promote the standards of journalism in the United States by giving working newspapermen, of at least three years' experience, the opportunity for an academic year of unrestricted study while on leave from their papers.

In 1937 the Foundation was established through a gift of more than $1,000,000 bequeathed to the University by Mrs. Agnes Wahl Nieman, widow of the founder of the Milwaukee Journal, in memory of her husband, Lucius W. Nieman, "to promote and elevate the standards of journalism in the United States".

List of Follows

Selected for the coming year are: Stephen E. Fitzgerald, 30, of the Haltimore Evening Sun; Carroll Kilpatrick, 25, of the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser; Hodding Carter, 32, of The Delta Democrat Times, Greenville, Miss.; Edward A. Wyatt 4th, 29, of the Progress-index, Petersburg, Va.; Weldon B. James, 26, foreign correspondent of the United Press; William B. Diekinson, Jr., 30, Northwest news manager of the United Press, Minneapolis, Minn.; Volta W. Torrey, 34, news review editor of the Associated Press, New York City; William P. Vogel, Jr., 28, city hall reporter of The New York Herald Tribune; Oscar J. Buttodahl, 35, editor of The Leader, Bismarck, N. D.; Glenn C. Nixon, 31, economic reporter on The United States News, Washington, D.C.; Edward Allen, 33, of The Boston Herald; and Steven M. Spencer, 33, of The Evening Bulletin, Philadelphia.

Dinner Speakers

A list of dinner speakers for the first half year has already been drawn up by Mr. Lyons. Included in the list are: Joseph Pulitzer, publisher, St. Louis Post-Dispatch; Raymond Clapper, Washington commentator; Mark Ethridge, general manager, Louisville Courier Journal; Arthur Sulzberger, publisher, New York Times; Arthur Krock, Washington correspondent, New York Times; Lucien Price, editorial writer, Boston Globe; and Harry W. Frantz, chief of foreign correspondents of the United Press, Washington. According to present plans the dinners will be held at the Signet Society clubhouse on Dunster Street and be open only to the Nieman Follows and a few specially invited faculty guests.

New Headquarters

Temporary headquarters of the Foundation have been set up at the Service Bureau in Lehman Hall, but within a few weeks permanent quarters are to be established at Holyoke House 44.

Mr. Lyons announced Saturday that the name of Talcott Parsons, assistant professor of Sociology, had been added to the Faculty Advisory Committee, consisting of Jerome D. Greene, chairman; Alvin H. Hanson; Howard Mumford Jones; Carl J. Friedrich; and Arthur Wild