‘Haven’t you got one at the Graduate College? Oh, I see, it’s everybody’s, and so you can’t really pick and choose, can you?’
I said it was so but still I would try.
‘And how do you set about it really?’ I asked.
‘Oh, we send sample questions to sample people in sample areas – but it depends on many things, you know,’ the poll pundit explained. ‘And you have to do a lot of reading and interpreting of the returns.’
‘Rather risky, isn’t it?’ I asked in my innocence.
‘Oh, not really,’ they both began. ‘Haven’t we always achieved fairly accurate polls?’ husband and wife asked themselves. They gave some percentage which they mulled over briefly, a percentage of near perfect forecasts to make the oldest oracles still left look to their remaining groves.
‘And considering we are only a small set-up, it really is amazing.’
‘Most amazing,’ I agreed. ‘About how many are you?’
‘Oh, almost the entire business is in Princeton here, you know. Of course, we have a few hands on the field all over the country.’
‘And what have they found out is the opinion right now of the American people about this Cuba business?’
‘If you mean the business about invading that unhappy island … the general opinion of Americans, from coast to coast, is that the administration should not start a shooting war to remove those missiles planted by the Russians. After all, the California man hardly knows Cuba exists!’
We all laughed, poured ourselves more tea, and got fresh biscuits and buns to nibble at. A few days after, President Kennedy announced the American blockade of Cuba.
Somehow, I never quite got round to visiting the world famous pollster plant at Princeton as the young man and woman helping to tend it had invited me to do. Either Mr Gallup was out lunching or something or other was on, the secretaries who answered my telephone calls told me politely.
On the other hand, my visit to The Home News in New Brunswick, some 20 miles from Princeton, came off pat. Its publisher and owner, a Princeton resident, actually called, at the Woodrow Wilson School one early morning so we could meet and work out the details of my visit. My excitement was keen, in fact, much sharper than the teeth and claws of the cold that was beginning to set in then. Consequently, I showed up on the dot although the manager of my life at Princeton was to say, several months after, as one of the unpardonable bad things I had done, that I had shown discourtesy by turning up late for the meeting. What happened was that we had agreed that the promotions manager back in the press in New Brunswick would call me later that week to arrange where and at what hour and on what bus he should meet me. It was this call I had missed because I had in the meantime sandwiched a visit to New York. I missed the right train returning, but got on the telephone at once to my Princeton sponsor and the publisher, and at that time, everybody said: ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter at all!’
Publisher Boyd, fiftyish, crinkly about the eyes, and very sprightly, well confirmed that old saying that small bottles usually carry good wine. This was not the first time he had played host to an African journalist. As a matter of fact, a Nigerian editor had spent some time on his paper a year or so back and was wanting at that time to return to the States. Did I know him? I said I did, and when I added the paper I worked for before coming was part-owned by Nigerians and part-owned by the Canadian press mogul Roy Thomson, his Irish eyes lit up. And did I know the old rogue was even then in New York? No, I said. Has he come to carry off some more newspaper chains, the old rogue with itchy fingers? Which made even our old colonel join in our laughter. A conscientious democrat, (as a matter of fact he was chairman of his local party branch), the colonel manoeuvred the topic to the influence a paper like that of our friend was likely to exert on the course of voting in Congress and the local elections which were then in the offing down the entire sweep of the land.
‘We are not partisan,’ the press baron said, ‘but we do make it a point of the duty we owe the country and community we serve to examine candidates on their individual merits. It is on the basis of this we recommend to the electorate the acceptance or rejection of any candidate put up by either of the parties.’
‘A very good policy,’ the colonel nodded his hectagonal head in approval.
And before the small conference broke up, there was some talk that it would be a good thing if my proposed tour of the press could take in some newspaper chains out in the MidWest. These had a character and a colour all their own, and the publisher who had the necessary connections said he would only be too pleased to put me in touch. I lost that opportunity.
The Home News, true to its name, has all the family and close community atmosphere of a house magazine, but a very prosperous one indeed. Serving the twin counties of Middlesex and Somerset with a population of about half a million between them, its readership of more than 40,000, come weekday or Sunday, forms part of the garden state of New Jersey now fast turning itself into one vast suburban sprawl between the two metropolitan centres of New York and Philadelphia, America’s two giant, ancient cities on the east coast. The paper is understandably very proud of the fact that the average family income of $7,000 enjoyed by its readers stands out as one of the highest buying powers in the whole of the United States. Thus it carries every day a heavy tonnage of advertisements, covering in the course of the year more than a million inches of linage worth its weight in gold.
I became fast friends with the paper’s promotion manager John Donnelly. He showed me the whole house from the editorial section to the press room, where a brand new Scot Press sported six units. There they stood sleek, sturdy and restive like stallions all set for a race. The editorial page editor, Mr Alexander Jones, also gave me generously of his time and knowledge. Ours was a meeting on common ground, to quote the beautiful story the paper did on my visit. And between him and the management there was a happy meeting of minds. As a result, there hardly was any split in opinion he could think of, and in any case, a good number of the editorials, like feature and news stories, were syndicated stuff that came in by teleprinter or post. In the women’s department, two perfectly charming girls explained to me the smooth working of their page. A lot of this was taken up by wedding photographs and stories. Both girls were somewhat startled when I likened their job to that of compiling albums of social events. Oh, not really, they demurred, and how was the job done on my own paper? They would love to see a Nigerian newspaper, you know, they said. I promised I would let them, not that there was anything much to show, but all the same, I said I would. Much to my shame, the promise was never fulfilled.
All told, the mail room left on me the most happy impression. As the finished paper is spat out in elevens every one second, it is taken on conveyor belts from the press to the mail room for bundling in proper numbers, then for tying, and finally the bundles are carried on endless belts to trucks waiting outside to make delivery to newstands and the five hundred newsboys serving the two counties. The entire operation is automatic, swift, smooth and seemingly endless to watch. Here, I told my hosts, was something we could certainly do with in my native land.
Pleasant as my stay at The Home News was, one or two minor incidents occurred that more or less clogged for me its oiled flow. The first, very slight and unnoticed by anyone, was my meeting in the cafeteria with a well-groomed capsulesized youth.
‘Come and meet our guest from Nigeria,’ the gentleman who was standing me lunch called out to him. ‘This is Boyd Junior, our President’s son,’ he told me. We shook hands, a bit limply perhaps, and Boyd Junior walked away immediately to collect his meal.
‘I thought he was one of your cub reporters,’ I said, looking at the young man now part of the general body of workers jostling for their lunch.
‘Well, so he is,’ my friend said simply, ‘but only for a short time. He’s doing the rounds before he takes over from his father as president and publisher.’
I said: ‘How nice!’
Finally, it was time to say farewell, although John said it would form a perfect finish if I could return that night to watch how the newspaper was going to cover the results of the elections which had taken place that day. We agreed to wait on the weather. In the meantime, he took me in his car to catch the bus at a point from where he collected me each day. But as usual, the bus didn’t seem to be coming according to schedule. So we got out of the cold air and of our damp overcoats into the warmth of a coffee shop by the road side. John ordered cups for us two, and there in the smoky shop we complimented ourselves for a good meeting, adding in the process more smoke clouds from our lungs to that already floating in the room. Feeling at that moment more than close to the man, I pointed to a block of buildings overlooking the place. A lot of black folks seemed to come in and out of there.
‘Are there many coloured people in New Brunswick?’ I asked.
‘Oh, quite a number.’
‘And how are they?’
‘We are doing a lot for them,’ John said warmly. ‘Why, look at the new blocks by the river. You ought to come again so I can take you to see them. The Home News did a lot of fighting to have the development of the place carried out by the city council. Oh, it should ease the Negro lot a great deal, and there is more we want to do for them.’
I felt the coffee turn clayish on my tongue. Poor blacks, I contained my thoughts, they don’t even form part of their own society. Like children or aliens, things usually are done for them. Whenever the adults and patrons are so willing and in the mood to be generous, then a little gift or concession here and there for these helpless and powerless. I did not want to prick the expansive balloon or bubble of my fine host, so climbing down the tall stool I sat on, I spotted the bus just then pulling to a stop outside in the drift, and said as sincerely as I could: ‘Goodbye old fellow, and thanks for everything.’
There was a comic epilogue to my Home News visit. Several days after, I got a letter from John. Part of it was the house magazine of some alumni association somewhere in the State of New Jersey. It carried a lead story captioned ‘Letter from Lagos’ as sent home by one of their far-ranging members, a Jesuit father. And there on the cover, as large as life, against a map of Western Nigeria, was a white-over-black photograph of its author, in all the habits and humility of his order, telling the story of that unending mission to bring light to yet another dark people.
The Washington Post after The Home News, was like going from a shop in New York’s lower east side to a departmental store like Lord and Taylor on Fifth Avenue. Of course the smooth, endless machinery appears the same, the same material is mixed and served to a mass public, and the men are the same ants all over again, walking over one another in the rush and push to make the grade. Only the display of wares shows louder, the size of market larger, and the managers get more and more involved with the business of creating and directing tastes and fashion both at home and abroad. This is more so with The Washington Post, as the paper tries to do what even the New York Times in all its volumes and verbiage still sees as a fond hope – serving as the national newspaper of a country that is really a continent.
A strange club of several disparate members, each with his own rash of communication organs to preach, represent, and uphold the dignity and inalienable rights of every American, that is, the property owner – the Union that Lincoln saved still lacks one such common institution as found in smaller and more compact countries. So publishing in the federal capital where the president of the club, with all the cohorts of chucker-outs at his command, is bravely doing his best to defend and protect a constitution about which no two members of the club agree, The Washington Post assumes a role and a tone, that, one may venture to say at this safe distance, are not altogether in keeping with the paper’s actual stature and performance. My visit to that establishment therefore proved more than just an advance from the relatively pioneering business at home to the limitless confines and resources of a corporation; my journey there became something of a pilgrimage and I was glad when it was over.
Lunch, after a dizzy tour of the place conducted by a young reporter, who said he was doing research into the communication methods and habits of the Ibo people in Nigeria, was a high-powered affair, in one of those gleaming dining-rooms that together with a complete kitchen service form a healthy appendage of every American establishment worthy to be called a corporation. The managing editor, Mr Alfred Friendly, a most friendly host, took me up and introduced me to his colleagues, a whole circle of them. Their names and positions soon ceased to matter in the clatter of silver and tabletalk. At the head of table sat a distinguished gentleman who I thought was the great Phil Graham himself, owner by marriage and more of the establishment. Beginning with him, flanked on one side by a young lady staff member and on the other by the day’s guest, who happened to be me, and going up to the managing editor at the other end of the table, and then finally to the rest of the exclusive group filling in both sides, all of this apparently according to some pre-ordained arrangement, the black anonymous housekeeper served us hot toasted grape fruit, followed this with the main dish of steak and something, offered dessert which I declined, and finally rich black coffee of which everybody took a generous helping. It was quite a ritual, with a rising cross-current of dialogue and chorus to it, and she alone, the one that mattered, playing a dumb part.
Earlier, in the elevator going up, I had started what turned out to be a proper prologue.
‘I have a letter for the editor,’ I said.
‘Oh, have you? And where is it?’ Mr Friendly asked in his warm baritone voice, crushing like gravel in a barrel rolling down a road.
‘I still have to write it!’ I laughed.
