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" The "an The ,, IVI DeWitt Wallace, now 89 years old, has editorial policy strongly missionary in tone, which has led =nine intellectuals to describe the mag~.ine as suffocat- ingly sweet-the bland leading the bland. The magazine cherishes articles on spiritual advice and self-help and in- spirational stories on those who have Hsen aizave adversity. It has a partial view of the world, and articles dealing with problems which have more than one possible soIudon do not appear in the Digest, $chreiner points out in his book. Wallace used the magazine to preach his own personal creed of consereatism ~n~le." I~ ~v~ ~ R~'s D~ "~e op~on of dis~isi~ i~ o~ opinion in the fo~ of ~ sup~ ~p~nt from another m~inc," Schminer said. Re~c~ of ~th m~n~ "'~ tually ~ngdo~d." ~c system of pl~fing stod~ d~d not always work in Wallacc's favor, Schm~ner recalls. Between ~unc 1938 and D~cm~r 1941, ~e Digest ~pdntcd so~ ~cl~, most of t~m plm~ ~d s~c proJ~, from a m~nc ~Icd L~v~ng Age. Unknown In the L~v~ng A~ w~ publish~ by t~ee W~hzce ~y of ~ie~ ~Hry ~t the ~ ~r o~e~'" he ~. Nor, says Schminer, is the~ m~h indi~tion t~t W~l~'s jo~al~- on~ d=cfi~d by the m~ine's own busine~ st~ = "'~lty's tmln~ seMs"-chde under WMlacc's ideo- In#col rains. As Schminer says in his b~k. the m~i~'s cditu~ ~ not the ink-st~n~ wrctch~" found in news- ~r o~ces, but earn hi# salves, ~ceivc g~ ~nuses. hold st~k (nonvotinD, ~d ~e allow~ to sh~ in the Di~st's profits, all of which gives them a ~on~ inte~st in the ~¢dJffs_m.ag_azlnetowa_~e~waron withacapitai"C'-flag-wavingpatdot- Americans financed by the Japanese success of the lucrative magazine. ctgarette smoking for more tha~-5~sr~un-dm!ndand~body.Thussto~es_G~v~mm~nt`~ha4nagaz~n~hadbeen~-~.nt~. years-although he once wa~ a heavy not contorrmng to his own politico- bought in 1938 with $15 0~0 contrib- ,,u,~, ,at,u=tz smoker, moral views of the world rarely creep uted by a Japanese diplomat who also But it is not only the Reader's Digest institutions promoting free enterprise and patriotism. By contrast, Lila, also the child of a Presbyterian minister, appears more impulsive and ostentatious with her wealth, according to Schreincr. At a fund-raising luncheon, the Di- gest dowager once whipped out her checkbook to scribble a $1 million check. On another occasion, during an interview with a New York Times re- porter, she impressed the writer by firth-king from a 4,000-year-old Egyp- tian gold cup. One of her pastimes has been to beautify the offices of the Reader's Digest in Pleasantville, N.Y., where thousands of Digest devotees appear annually to gaze, as if to pay homage at a shrine. She has hung the office walls and corridors with an art collection valued some years ago at $5 million, while other famous works of art are casually dotted around the magazine's guest house on the 155-acre grounds. The splendor of Picasantvillc re- portedly prompted one Digest staffer to wonder what God could do if He had money. But despite his millions, Wallace has a "string-saving mentality." says Schreiner, whose book about the Wal- laces, "'The Condensed World of the Reader's Digest," was published in 1977. Wallace's financial prudence in- cluded once ordering his guest house staff to stop giving away cigarettes and to change the cocktail munchies from cashews to peanuts. The Gospel Philanthropy is one of the public faces of William Roy DcWitt Wallace who, in forecast of what was to be a llfetime's passion for simplicity, con- dcnsed his name to DcWitt when he w-~ only I 0 years old. The private side of Walhce-his per- sonal philosophy and how it is Lm- onto Digest pages. Although Wallace has now officially retired, Digest staff do not take his ap- parent absence from the magazine too seriously, according to Schreiner. Wal- lace is available for major decisions, some of which he makes without re- quest; Lila still picks out picturesque covers for the Digest. Sowing The Seeds When Wallace ran short of articles reflecting his ideological llne, the Digest would simply plant stories in other, sometimes obscure publications. The articles were planned, assigned to authors, and paid for, and then offered to other periodicals so that the Digest might "reprint" them. Not a hint was given to Digest readers that the articles were anything other than the views of an author lucky enough to be repub- lished in their favorite monthly journal. In 1965 alone, only 41 parcent of the articles in the U. S. edition were genu- ine digests of material from other pe- riodlcals, or from books or speeches, according to The Wall Street Journal. Another 34 percent were originals, and 25 percent were "plants" from 40 other publications ranging from such little-known magazines as Irish Farm- ors" Journal to such prestigious publi- cations as Harper's. When the practice was discovered, the Digest merely argued the money it paid the smaller magazines for repro- duction rights enabled them to survive in an increasingly competitive market. The plant system may have been ef- fective for Wailace's purposes, but the influential and prestigious The New Yorker abhorred the practice and in 1944 its editor, the late Harold Ross. barred the Digest's touching one sen- tence in his ,magazine, declaring Wal- lace's monthly read like "some guddara preacher wrote it." Ross felt the Digest's placement sys- tem was theoretically dangerous, in that a few imoplc in Pleasamville could subsidized the mar#zinc with $2,300 a month. In September 1942, the trio pleaded guilty in court to running their maga- zine for the Japanese Government. Disciples Of The True Faith Wallace hired only those whose views he approved, according to Schrcincr. who said the sponsor for his job on the Digest had gone out of Digest and Women The Reader's Digest likes to run stories about the woman's place in so- ciety. But when its own female em- ployees disputed their place, they won Inore than $1 million in back pay and salary hikes. The suit was filed by civil rights at- torney Harriet .Rabb as a class action on behalf of 2.000 women employees past and present. It called for equaliza- tion of pay. including retroactive addi- tional pay for women whose salaries were lower than those paid to men in comparahie jobs. It was settled last year before trial. with consent of both parties to contin- uing court supervision of the agree- ment. Rabb told TTO. Among the extraordinary complaints cited by Rabb was that records were kept on the all-female clerical pools with admonitions given on such things as frequency of visits to the ladies" room and the length of stay therein. "'It's incredible, but of all the wit- nesses we've interviewed, not one has ever had the nerve to ask for a pay raise." Rabb said. "We're hoping that as a result of this suit people-men as well as women-won't have to tremble in their boots anymore." But although Rabb won a battle, she fears she has not won the war against sex discrimination at the Disest. "The Wallaces won't cban~. They only cause money to ¢h~mse h~de. ant attitudes," she told TTO. writers and editors who, either volun- tarily or from economic necessity, obey the master's voice. Schreiner discloses that the Digest regularly uses ghost-writers to knock into shape guest articles written by the famous, including Billy Graham and the late Dwight D. Eisenhower. Schreiner says Reader's Digest be- lieves it doesn't matter who wrote an article as long as it is informative and entertaining. The magazine signed up Eisenbower for a reputed $25,000 per article after he left the White House. Obviously, everything Eisenbower "wrote" became instant front-page news, providing Reader's Digest with a form of public relations that couldn't be bought with any amount of money. All Eiscnhower's articles were in fact written by a former Saturday Evening Post journalist, the ideas for them largely originating in Pleasant- ville, according to Schreiner. The Digest's failure to make it clear to readers that the words were not ex- actly Eiscnhower's was "'another ob- vious form of deception," Schreiner says. '"We Do A~We Damn Please And That's Close To Ideal"- Wallace One of Wallace's most controversial policies is his refusal to allow letters. rebuttals, or right of reply. Readers are encouraged to send in jokes, reminiscences, or heartwarming stodes of courage or tear-jerking ac- counts of tragedy, but that is the limit of pablic access to the magazine. The magazine's refusal to allow re- buttals has become one of its most controversial characteristics, so much so that the Journalism Review was once moved to point out that prudent Digest readers would do well to con- clude that any article attacking indi- viduals or ~ovemment agencies "'rep- resants the Digest's attitude, not neces- sarily a dLspaasionate account." The Digest's policy of refus/ag to allow criticism of itself, the Review noted. "is iadefeosible by any pl~'es- Tke T~<~o O~¢r II TI53180767

S,mokers, F: :ght, Worl,d To By Comely Rucks other Americans. We want to improve; hour midday.jogging and tennis now at- Washington, D. C. {AP)-The White House was enshrouded in a dense fog today as hundreds of militant "'incorri- gible" smokers, styling themselves the American Smokers Movement and led by militant smoker Hack Raspkoff, be- gan their "smoke-in" demonstration against President Jerry Brown's July 1S endorsement of the "separate but cquar' doctrine for smokers upheld by the Supreme Court's landmark Carson v. Catifano decision. Outbursts of violence occurred as the demonstrators clashed with police. who had begun to arrest them for il- legally Icavi~ t~ici~Tcservalion-near Fargo, North Dakota, where they had bccn assigned as incorrigible smokers in ] 984. Violence also en~ptcd betwean the demonstrators and tbe jeering, taunting onlookers, most of whom ware noontime joggers from nearby federal office buildings. Tbe onlookers cheered as the police used water can- nons and then German shepherds to disperse the smokers. la a speech before the demonstrators, Raspkolf strongly denounced the "sep- arate but equal" doctrine as discrimi- natory and in violation of what he termed the "human fights" of smokers. Raspkoff was also strongly critical of the so-called "Philip Morris" legisla- tion, including the 1980 $55 per pack tax on cigarettes; the 1981 banning of cigarette smoking from all public places (basically all places except the insides of homes owned outright or not financed by members of the Federal Reserve System); the 1982 mandatory sprinkler systems in all new automobiles and the forced sale of all businesses owned by smokers, the 1983 banning of all public display of photographs of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Douglas MacArthur, and Winston Churchill and the elimination of their photographs from school text- books; and, finally, the 1984 "total segregation" plan devised by Health, Education, and Welfare Secretary Joseph A. Califaoo Jr. In his speech, Raspkoffsaid, "All we want is the same opportunities afforded we want to bca productive part of So- clety.., but we must have a chance, and integration is the only answer. How can our people learn the ways of the rest of Society except by constant posure to them? Sure, it's true that some nonsmokers will have to pay a temporary price, but it is a small price in relation to the total benefit to society: 25 million smokers, now relegated to third-class status, can become produc- tive Americans." Raspkoff then presented his four- point plan for smokers' rights. The plan called for allowing smokers to leave the reservation and live wherever they choose, and requiring~eFe cd~-ra1~o~ erumant to hire I0 pcrceot smokers- their percentage of the gcnsral popula- tion-over the next five years. The hiring of smokers by the Federal Gov- ernment was banned in 1980. Raspkoffalso proposed that smokers be allowed a five-minute smoke break mornings and afteruoons on the roof- tops of their o~ce buildings: the smok- ers would not be paid for the breaks. He stated that these breaks would not hurl govemmeot productivity any more than the paid three-and-one-half- lowed the g5 pemeat of all f~eral workers who earn in excess of $85,000 per y~ar. By far the most controversial point in Raspkoff's speech, however, was his school desegregation plan, which would allow the children of smokers to attend school with the children of non- smokers instead of the reservation schools they now attend. Nonsmokers strongly object to his plan, claiming that their children may learn bad habits from the children of smokers. Many nonsmoker parents also object to the odor of smokers' children. In particu- larly health-oriented areas such as the ~ubm'bsofWashingtorran~Boston,~ami the East Side of Manhattan in New York, teachers have had to spray school desks with Lysol to eliminate the odor after smokers' children had occupied them. Congressman Tony Randall, leader of tbe group which originally proposed the tough anti-smoking legislation, labeled Raspkoff's plan "absurd." Randall, who has advocated capital punishment for smoking said, "These people have demonstrated their inferi- ority and their inability to participate r'C~MON ! WHERE'5 THAT GOOP OLP ~AT'LL HELP STAVE in the mainstream af Amcdcan life. If they're so equal, why are they still puff- ing cigarettes and drinking beer while nonsmokers arc running ten miles a day?. The majority is not about to sub- nit to their [the smokers'] disruptive, divisive tactics, and they will most cer- tainly not allow inooccnt children to bc nscd as pawns. I am not without a cer- tain sympathy for the plight of smokers, but they must realize that tbesc things take time. They must be patient . . . when they are ready to bc accepted into society, they will be accepted." Raspkoff was himself denounced as an "Uncle Tom" by Norman ("Bull") Durham. leader oftbe scparatist "Nico- ~inc~Panthcrs'~gro_up~_who also ap- pea.red at tbe demonstration. The Pan- thers, clad in black leather jackets with pictures of Humphrey Bogart on the back, were openly chain-smoking con- traband "'Camel" cigarettes. Washing- ton Tobacco Squad Chief Vickie Can" estimated the total street value of the cigarettes at over half a million dollars. Tempers flared in the crowd when outspoken comedian Jerry Lewis, dem- onstrafing sympathy for the smokers, kissed a woman who was holding a burning cigasette. A health group had expressed outrage last month when a picture of Lewis kissing another female smoker appeared in Jogger's News, the nation's most widely circulated maga- zine. The offending picture had been taken at Lewis' notorious reception for the Nicotine Panther group in Holly- wood last August, and it has since ap- peared on many billboards urging mov- iegoors to boycott Lewis" movies in the Washington, New York, Boston, and San Francisco areas. President Brown, who at the time of the demonstration was signing legisla- tion authorizing free marijuana for post- operative government abortion recipi- ents, was unavailable for comment. Mr. Rucks, associate professor of mar- keting at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, has been known to smoke a pack a day while hidden in his office. IN THIS ISSUE OF ILcc'[6bacco • TIM About Will.Builders (Pg, 7) • HEW Fete-Stagg~'ln9 Bill (l~j. 8) The Tobacco Observer 1776 K Street, N.W. Washington, D. C. 20006 TI5318076,8