Radio doings (Dec 1930-Jun1932)

I n Shuler— and Free Speech I" S "Fighting Bob'' Shuler. the loud-speaking Los Angeles X preacher who last November shouted himself off the air, the people's champion of the sacred right of free speech? Or is he merely one of those persons who succeeded in talking himself into public notice? Because he has injected the fundamental principle of freedom of speech into it, Bob Shuler's case is attracting nationwide interest. Writers of editorials throughout the country have taken it up, many of them terming Dr. Shuler a blatant and obnoxious personality but still defending his right to be heard on the ether. A Methodist preacher from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Dr. Robert Pierce Shuler landed in Los Angeles a dozen years ago, after a preaching career in various parts of the Old South, where preaching is traditionally direct and red-hot. At Los Angeles' Trinity Methodist Church, South, Bob Shuler built up a large admiring congregation and a reputation. In 1926 he went on the air. Station KGEF, licensed in the name of his church, was his mouthpiece, and on Station KGEF. Bob Shuler was the whole show. Its radio audience grew to be one of the nation's largest. The air was sizzling with Dr. Shuler's vigorous and outspoken denunciations of civic corruption, and what not. Protests from various civic groups began to pour into the Federal Radio Commission at Washington. Consequently, last fall when Station KGEF's license came up for renewal, the auplication was set for hearing by the Radio Commission. Chief Examiner Yost of the Commission journeyed to the West Coast to hear the case. Testimony which filled many thousands of pages was taken. Examiner Yost, who is getting as great a reputation at working through the tangled affairs of radio as his famed football coaching brother Fielding Yost had at breaking through a tangled football field, carted his voluminous record back to Washington. He recommended that KGEF's license be renewed, although he severely condemned certain of the Shuler broadcasts. The Federal Radio Commission, however, after reviewing the record, reversed Examiner Yost and refused to renew the license. Its opinion held that Dr. Shuler's choice of language and his criticism of personalities were against the oublic interest. It feared that were he to continue his broadcasts nobody's reputation would be safe, as it had been declared that many of Dr. Shuler's charges against individuals were based on half-truths, made without full investigation of the facts. Dr. Shuler, who argued his own case, himself had admitted that he had been mislead on some facts. The right to censor or restrict public utterances to the extent of preventing obscenity or indecency and libelous statement is well-recognized. Restric'ion on such grounds is not usually considered an abridgement of free speech, and the Federal Radio Commission presumably had no intention of going into the question of free speech in ordering Bob Shuler's station off the air. Its power to restrict libel and indecency is conferred by the Radio Act under which the Commission operates, and it felt that suspension of KGEF on these grounds was fully justified by the facts. Bob Shuler, however, is a wildcat when it comes to fighting. He seized upon the wording of the Commission's opinion to raise the fundamental issue of freedom of speech. With his own broadcasting station silenced, he got himself as much time on the air as ever on other stations by announcing him self a candidate for office. He made much of the fact that the Federal Radio Commission notified him of its refusal to re-license his broadcasting station by a telegram sent collect for $4.77. Appealing to his fan-following, he collected thousands of dollars to help fight his case, and carried the fight to the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia. When the District Court of Appeals denied the stay order Bob Shuler sought against the Federal Radio Commission, he petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States for a writ of certiorari. The SCOTUS, as news scribes abbreviate the name of the nation's highest tribunal in their dispatches, refused to review the case, and Bob Shuler is back in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. And his station is still off the air. What the District Court of Appeals does will determine whether Fighting Bob Shuler's case is one that will make history or merely loud noise. If the Court sustains or reverses the Federal Radio Commission on the basis of facts, the only issue that will be decided will be the fate of Station KGEF. If, on the other hand, the Court rules on the right of the Commission to restrict freedom of speech, as Bob Shuler would dearly love to have it do, the reverberations will go far and wide. The whole set-up of radio will be shaken. The organized broadcasters and many others will jump into the fray. And Bob Shuler will be hailed as the people's champion of a fundamental constitutional right. SAYS William S. Paley, president of Columbia: casting is at once a public service and 'Broadbusiness of incredibly swift growth. Mobility of operation, quick responsiveness to public taste and public needs are essential in this giant art. "It should be recognized that this vast development and the dissemination of programs of popular and classical character have been due largely to the coperation and support of advertisers. "While broadcasting is now thoroughly established, I do not believe that even yet we can foresee its whole destiny. We do not know that through the industrial crisis commerce and industry have found it an indispensably strong weapon and that it is now assured of sufficient revenues to meet the vast sums required to serve its public and leave a fair margin of profit. This healthy stabilization has put broadcasting in a strong position to grapple with its ever new problems and to develop to a degree in America that it does not seem possible for it to attain anvwhere else." AND now it's possible to determine scientifically whether a singer is a crooner or not. And. by means of a new instrument devised a voice test showed that Morton Downey, for one. isn't to be included in the crooner category. The instrument, called the "projection oscilloscope," reproduces voice and musical sounds in the form of a ribbon of light, vibrating across a silver screen. From the character of the ribbon produced, the quality, range and timbre of a sound can be accurately analyzed. Dr. William Braid White is the scientist who presented the new invention to the world recent lv. RADIO DOINGS Page Seven