1933
Steven Vincent Benet, writing in the May 1933 issue of Fortune, described UP this way:
"The United Press is neither a charity nor philanthropy. It is a business concern and its members work for profit. But there is another motive which drives them quite as strongly. You can call it pride of profession or professional zest or enthusiasm or self-hypnosis. But whatever you call it, it is as common to the stockholding executives as to the lunch-money copy boy - it is indeed the strongest of the bonds that holds the UP together. And what it boils down to, when the sentiment and the wisecracks are both skimmed off, is an actual and genuine love of the game. Unipressers are bound in an unusual esprit de corps, hard to define but nonetheless real. No doubt it has something to do with the UP's fearless independence."
1933
In the depths of the Great Depression, H. Allen Smith of UP's New York bureau uncovered a potential story about a nudist colony in Highland, N.Y., so he went there on Aug.17. "I sat nude on a large rock, with my portable on my knees, when I wrote it," Smith recalled later. "This distinction, however, probably is of dubious value. I need only mention that mosquitoes were there in vast numbers." His lead: "All arguments to the contrary, it is very embarrassing to have a young woman walk up to you stark naked and tell you that nudism is going to sweep the nation." Smith went on to become a well-known humorist and wrote a number of books, including a book of recollections called "Low Man on a Totem Pole" in 1944. Fred Allen described Smith as "the screwball's Boswell" and "a jetsam journalist."
1939
 |
|
Harry W. Frantz: South American Editor at Washington - 1933 (UPI file)
|
Harry Frantz, international cables editor in Washington, became the first passenger to fly all three major American transoceanic routes. In August 1936, he covered the inaugural flight of the Trinidad Clipper from San Juan to Trinidad, flying on to Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, across the Andes, and up the west coast of South America. In October 1936, he was aboard the historic preview flight of the China Clipper, which preceded passenger service from San Francisco to Manila. On June 17, 1939, he rounded out the picture by flying the Atlantic Clipper from Port Washington, Long Island in New York, to Europe and back.
|
