COMMENDABLE BANISHMENT

The Des Moines Register in banishing all crime from its front page has undertaken one of the most commendable experiments ever tried by a newspaper. The success of the project naturally still hangs in the balance; the theory is still new and untried, but such an innovation certainly deserves all the help that can be given it. Particularly at this time when all news is sensation, and all sensation news there should be some champion of a better era. The Des Moines Register has been the first to take up arms, the first to attempt a remedy.

Murder in three inch headlines, robbery is packed columns, and sex abuse wherever these are not, have too long hammered their suggestions from the first page. Bury such matters among the advertisements of the inner pages and they lose half their force. Keep it out entirely and the press will be thoroughly respectable, but such a measure will come only with time. The Des Moines Register has driven the first wedge.