The Press: Winston-Salem

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In the "southern tier" of New York State—the lush butter-and-egg and grape juice counties along the Pennsylvania line—they all know Frank Ernest Gannett. He is the big newspaperman of the region; owns seven dailies, in Rochester, Utica, Elmira, Ithaca, Newburgh. He is a sort of little Munsey in his way, having consolidated various competing organs to make up his string, always keeping an eye open for fresh opportunities.

He is thoroughly of New York state; born in Bristol, schooled at Ithaca, where he got his start scrivening for the undergraduate Cornell Sun. But he would have been popular with the New Yorkers no matter where he was born. Smooth-faced, graying a little, just 50, his personality is of the kind that makes trade organs like the Fourth Estate lay it on thick about "integrity," "ideals," "sincerity," "inspiring confidence and loyalty" in explaining his "romantic" career. For three years he has been fighting Publisher Hearst over an Associated Press franchise in Rochester, and though victory is not yet with him, the Southern Tier is stronger than ever for "Spunky Frank" Gannett. Last June, Cornell elected him a trustee.

Small wonder, therefore, that the Southern Tier was astonished when it heard, last week, that Frank E. Gannett's latest newspaper enterprise was far outside of New York State; was, in fact, way down across the Mason Dixon Line. Many people did not realize what Mr. Gannett was up to, by heading a syndicate to buy the Twin City Sentinel, biggest daily in Winston-Salem, N. C. But those who did realize, said: "Well, that just shows you Frank Gannett's vision. He may operate in the Finger Lakes but not by rule of thumb."

Say "Winston-Salem" to any well-informed man and he will snap right back at you: "Biggest, fastest-growing city in North Carolina. Population three years ago, 48,000; now, about 70,000. Home of Camel cigarets and the rest of the Reynolds Tobacco products. Been booming like Billy-get-out lately. Livest town down South."

How far ahead of the boom Frank Gannett was when he made his plans, he alone could say. How long before the most provincial Americano will be thoroughly conscious of Winston-Salem's place in the sun, is also a matter of conjecture. But with a Gannett paper in town, Winston-Salem's light is in no danger of bushel-burial, despite a curious feature of that town which any friend of Mr. Gannett's would not fail to remark should he accompany the publisher down there some day to look things over.

You are struck, on your first visit to Winston-Salem, by the fact that it is off the main railroad line, up in the hills. You have to change trains at Greensboro, a second-rate town (considering its advantages) where, dazzling and unexpected above an ill-kempt street lined with shabby buildings, a single white skyscraper (the Jefferson Standard Life Insurance Co., largest in the South, assets, $31,000,000) towers up, its façade handsome with carving, its superior ground-floor shops the heralds of Greensboro's delayed awakening.