part of the top deck it should be used in preference to the active. In the following head the important point is that the post office has been robbed, rather than the fact that it was robbed by tramps.
POST OFFICE ROBBED
BY BAND OF TRAMPS
This head would be less effective with the active verb, since the robbery of the post office would then go into the second part of the deck, thus:
BAND OF TRAMPS ROB
POST OFFICE SAFE
News value rather than rules must determine in any case whether the active or passive voice is desirable.
The use of abbreviations, likewise, cannot be fixed by rule. In general, only commonly used abbreviations, like "Dr.," "Prof.," "Mrs.," "Mr.," "St.," "Co.," are to be found in headlines. In particular cases, however, others are employed because they are convenient and clear. In Boston, for example, "Tech" as an abbreviation for "Massachusetts Institute of Technology," is common, and the Boston Herald, therefore, used it to advantage in the head:
200 TECH MEN SEE
YULE LOG BLAZE
During a long campaign for "immediate municipal ownership" in Chicago, the newspapers of that city used almost daily the abbreviation "I.M.O." So "L"
