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Swope. He is a 46-year-old red-headed cyclone. He is crazy over croquet, and an uncrowned champion at it. When he talk? he almost snorts. He can lick anybody in the world at any question game, and is proud of it. He is rich enough to buy all the zoos in the U. S., if he wants to. But, more than anything else, he is a red-hot newspaper reporter. Name: Herbert Bayard Swope.
He resigned, last week, as executive editor of the New York World, effective Jan. 1, 1929. That position he had attained because he was and is a red-hot reporter. He got on a train once and came back with a present for Manhattan—the Democratic National Convention of 1924. Recently, he uncorked Dr. Work's renewal of the Salt Creek oil lease (TIME, Oct. 29).
Mr. Swope says that it is a "bitter wrench" for him to leave the World, that Publisher Ralph Pulitzer remains his warm friend. But he also says: "I didn't wish to remain a hired man too long. ... I want to be master of my own destiny. . . ."
No one knows for certain the next move of Cyclone Swope. He may buy or start a New York newspaper. And his newspaper may be tabloid in size, condensed in style, intelligent in appeal. Whatever he does, he will have fun doing it.
The successor of Mr. Swope on the World will be Ralph Renaud. now managing editor of the New York Evening Post.
Herbert Bayard Swope and Gerard Swope, president of the General Electric Co., are brothers.
Kaufman. The New York Daily Mirror* began last week to print daily editorials by Herbert Kaufman, announcing his salary as "the highest word rate ever paid in journalism." But Mr. Kaufman's words are fewer than Arthur Brisbane's and set in far bigger type. Specimen Kaufmanisms:
"These United States are the answer to Old World hungers for full expression of personality."
"[At the Grocery Store.] Bins of romance and shelves of adventure! Come, peep into the packages and sacks. Here's treasure trove for imagination. ... A jeweled anaconda slithered her dread length across the plantation where yonder sack of coffee grew...."
Mr. Kaufman is 50. His stuff has long been syndicated in the U. S. and England. Many nice things have been said about him; someone dug out several dozen of the nicest for a testimonial advertisement published by the Daily Mirror. Mr. Kaufman himself has written some Hoover campaign advertisements, using words of a type that might tickle the tabloid mind. One Hoover advertisement suggestive of the Kaufman touch, spoke of "financial paronia" observable in the U. S. in 1920. There is no such word. The advertisement was almost certainly trying to say paranoia.
*Recently purchased by Albert J. Kobler, who advertised the fact with: "I only bespeak the patience of friends and public for time to 'Build My Rome.' " (TIME, Sept. 24.)