Believe It or Don’t

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PAST AND PRESENT: A black man might be elected U.S. president this year, but there was a time in the not-too-distant past when it was tough for an African American to be hired by a major newspaper.

Or be a U.S. Naval officer.

Carl Rowan, one of the first black Naval officers commissioned during World War II, was also the first of his race to be hired onto the Minneapolis Tribune news staff, according to the late Santa Barbara News-Press executive editor, Paul Veblen.

On the Beat

Veblen, who worked at the Trib before joining the News-Press in the late 1950s, told me how Rowan started on the Trib’s copy desk in 1948. One night, after a rough time getting the paper out, the makeup editor came up to the newsroom from the composing room, mopping his brow.

“God,” he growled as he happened to pass Rowan’s desk, “this is no job for a white man.”

Rowan become a Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist, was appointed by President John F. Kennedy to be deputy secretary of state, then a United Nations delegate, and later ambassador to Finland. As the Finns greeted Rowan and his wife, Vivian, at a garden party in Helsinki, the orchestra played American music, starting with “Old Black Joe.”

Upon his return to Washington and his column, Rowan was mowing his lawn one Saturday morning when a car pulled up, Veblen recounted. “The driver hollered, ‘Hey, boy.’ Carl came over. ‘How much do you get for this work?’ the driver asked. ‘I get to sleep with the lady of the house,’ Carl replied. Or so he said he said.”

TM’S ALLEGED DEATH: It was the day after the 1971 funeral of beloved Santa Barbara News-Press sports editor Phil Patton. (Phil’s son Mark is still writing sports for the News-Press.) Publisher Stuart Taylor, Veblen, and chief financial officer Bert Willoughby visited Phil’s widow, Rita, to extend condolences.

“Stu, Bert, and I drove back into the News-Press parking lot a little after 2 p.m.,” Veblen recalled before his death this year. Tom Storke, the longtime owner of the paper who had sold it in 1964, had been ill at home for weeks, with around-the-clock nursing care. “As we parked the car, Joe Lindsten [from the business office] hurried up and said, ‘We’ve had quite a stir around here.’ Shortly before 2 p.m., he said, TM’s nurse phoned him saying that TM had died.”

Veblen continued, “Joe rushed to the newsroom and KTMS radio and passed the word. KTMS broadcast it immediately, squeezing it in just before the 2 p.m. NBC news. Then the nurse called Joe back and said she was mistaken; TM was still alive. He lived for about 24 more hours.” (KTMS was the News-Press station.)

BRIBERY MOST FOUL: One night in the 1970s, Veblen continued, he got a call. “It was from Phil Regan. ‘I’ve been arrested. They say I bribed a county supervisor. I hope you won’t have headlines a foot tall about it in the paper tomorrow.’”

But it was the lead story in the News-Press the next day. “Phil was the ‘singing cop’—a New York policeman who found he had a pleasant, Irish-sounding tenor voice. It got him onstage and into the movies, where he made it big in a small way. He made a side career singing ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’ at Democratic national conventions.”

Veblen said, “Well, some days were happier for Regan than others. An Iranian named Halimi got an option on a couple of hundred oceanfront acres—More Mesa—and proposed a development called Tyrolian Village, of all things. He hired Regan as a frontman to help get county approval. Regan wanted the vote of Frank Frost, who had just been elected a county supervisor. His campaign was run by a former News-Press reporter Ken Palmer, who had gone into the public relations business.”

Veblen explained, “Regan offered Ken $10,000 to split with Frost if Frost voted right. Ken reported the bribe attempt to the sheriff. Deputies wired Ken for sound and he had another chat with Regan. Regan repeated his offer and his words were recorded. He was tried and went to prison. Died [in 1998] in Santa Barbara. Amazingly, most of More Mesa still is undeveloped.”

FRIAR TUCK AND TM: It was a grand day in 1962 when the News-Press dedicated its new printing press, located behind the paper in De la Guerra Plaza. As Veblen recalled, “Roly-poly Father Regis, a Friar Tuck-type from the Old Mission,” applied the holy water, “spoke a few elegant Latin phrases and blessed the new equipment.” But when crews tried to start the press the next morning for a maiden run, nothing happened. Nor the next day.

The following Saturday, when TM threw his annual party at the ranch for Los Rancheros Visitadores riders, “TM walked up to Father Regis and poked his finger at his chest. ‘You know, Padre, last Sunday you blessed my new press. And the goddamn thing hasn’t worked since.’”

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