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Here We Go Again
FOR reasons that escape me, amateur journalism as practiced in the NAPA includes irresistible urge toward fratricide. Constitutional wrangling and appeals to the Executive Judges are bread and wine to people who, I presumed, joined the association to practice the literary and/or printing arts. In my 13 years as a member, there have been several of these flare-ups including the Pink Parakeet affair and the San Diego fracas.
Every year around election time we shed crocodile tears over the lack of candidates for NAPA office. But as soon as some poor soul does volunteer, the nitpickers ink up their presses in hopes that he will err so they can rush into print with cries of outrage.
This year it’s Martin Horvat’s turn in the barrel.
From his very first issue of National Amateur, I knew Martin was in trouble. The September number was late – very late – and used about 40 pages for an apparently unedited version of the convention minutes. Additionally, Horvat editorialized against the “fun” approach to the hobby advocated by President Leah Warner in her message to the membership.
According to my “reliable sources,” Hyman Bradofsky fired off a letter to Horvat demanding that he publish a corrected version of the Laureate Judges’ report and an apology. When Horvat ignored him, Bradofsky apparently filed a protest with the Executive Judges.
Meanwhile, things were warming up in the bundles.
In its January 1, 1983 issue, APC News (official organ of the “inner circle”) published an article by former publisher Sheldon Wesson blasting Horvat for – among other things – “using football-field-size margins, yet, to help inflate the page count and the cost.” Perhaps we should amend the Constitution & By-Laws (May it endure forever!) to require the official organ to be printed with two 16 pica columns on every page.
Writing in VAPA Trails 30, Bob Williams gives Horvat hell for not “…singing from the same song sheet” as President Warner. Maybe we need another amendment required the OE to sign a loyalty oath.
Bill Haywood, husband of Executive Judge Matilda Haywood, blisters Horvat in his Scribe 11 and Harvin Fegal, publisher of the muckraking Shampane, stuck a king-size needle into Martin’s butt in his latest issue.
About the only calm voice in the storm appears to be that of President Warner. In her Greenbelt Special 3, she reports that her investigation of the delayed September NA found that Horvat’s typesetting machine broke down, “and that he apologized for the delay and promised more careful planning to avoid delays in future issues.” She resolved that problem amicably.
But when my copy of the March NA got here, I knew that now the stuff had really hit the fan!
Apparently the Executive Judges have ruled in favor of Bradofsky and ordered Horvat to publish an amended version of the Laureate report and an apology. Martin does neither in the March issue. In fact, he even refused to publish the Judges’ report!
Horvat protested that the report “… was inadequate because it was not clear what offenses I was charged with and because I had not been given an opportunity to respond to the charges prior to them rendering a decision.”
I don’t know why Martin should be surprised at this lack of due process. After all, our organization doesn’t even believe in universal suffrage.
At any rate, there now can be only one course of action for concerned NAPA members. We must raise the cry in our papers, in our letters, and from the rooftops.
Nail him to the wall!
National Calamity is a journal of sweet reasonableness which is distributed to the membership of the National Amateur Press Association by Frederick J. Liddle, Prop., Carpetbagger Press, Tampa, Florida 33606. Body type for this issue is 9/10 pt. Caslon 337; logo is 36 pt. Parisian; dateline is 14 pt. Parisian; head is 18 pt. Pabst Old Style. An edition of 400 copies was printed on a C&P Pilot. Paper stock is Kelsey Medium White.