“PUSSYFOOT” IN CHRISTCHURCH.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16846, 23 September 1922, Page 18

“PUSSYFOOT” IN CHRISTCHURCH.

PROHIBITION ESCHEWED FROM INTERVIEW. CELEBRITY TALKS ON NEWSPAPERS. Christchurch residents who attend Mr “Pussyfoot” Johnson’s meetings will meet a somewhat thick-set squarely built man, with a round pleasant, smiling face, a short iron-grey moustache. a full domed forehead, a square head sparsely covered with close cropped hair, mostly grey, a hazel eye with a glass one to match, and the tortoiseshell rimmed spectacles his countrymen have made fashionable. In conversation, he speaks with a good deal of animation, smiles readily, and oc--1 casionally laughs quietly when he sees the humour of a thing. He wears on his watch chain a sovereign with King George’s head on it. given to him by a British friend. An interview with bint in his temperance hotel bedroom to-day was interrupted by a local prohibitionist, who ( burst into the room with details of the Christchurch campaign and with the Stars and Stripes under his arm- This gave the visitor no opportunity to reach the movement in which he has become a celebrity. As a matter of fact, prohibition seemed to be furthest from his mind. It was not even mentioned by him. He spoke mainly of New Zealanders he lias met, particularly Sir Robert Stout, who. while in Auckland, dropped in at the office of the "World’s League in London, and of newspapers in America, England, and New Zealand. He has done more work in journalism than in any other line, a good deal of it as a reporter, but some of it* as a special writer and investigator. He is pleased with the treatment- newspapers in this country have given him. He described this morning’s leading article on him in the “ Lyttelton Times ” as “.very nice, very fine, very pleasing.’’ He said that it reminded him of the wav he was treated by the New York World.” That journal was one of the fiercest opponents of prohibition in its leading columns but he knew that whenever he went hack to America, no newspaper would treat him better. “American newspapers” he said, “ are on a higher ethical level than they were twenty years ago. There is no buying and selling them now for Bpecial purposes. because the people won’t stand it. People in America want the news mainly, and they buy the newspapers to read*jt. In American journalism we hav© a principle that the body of a story—you say article—should be in its headlines, that it should be repeated in the first paragraph, and that details should follow. In tliat way, a reader knows at first glance if he is interested in the story. English newspapers sometimes don’t give any idea what a story is about until it is read half through. For instance they would put up headings : ‘ A Sad Story, A Girl Killed.’ Sad stories are told all the time ; it doesn’t give any concrete idea. American newspapers place the best news on the front page ; English newspapers place it in the middle of the papers. T think that the ‘ New York Times ’ and the ‘ Chicago Tribune ’ are the best American newspapers, but the London ‘ Times ’ and the ' Manchester Guardian ’ have a higher standard than any other newspapers in the \fbrld. Newspapers in this Dominion follow closely the English style. They are enterprising and bright, and T like them very much.” Air Johnson seemed to feel amused to learn that New Zealand journalists work under an award of the Arbitration Court, and lie was puzzled to find how the work is done under hard-and-fast provisions fixed by a tribunal. Mr Johnson was entertained at tea at II a.m. to-day. Air J. 1. Rovds, chairman of the local branch of the National Efficiency* League, was in the chair, and about twenty supporters of the no-license movement attended. Mr Johnson was welcomed by the chairman. Archbishop Julius, and Mr J. A. Flesher (Deputy Mayor.)