The Press: New .Face For Chicago

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Observers foresaw a long, hard pull for the owners of the News. When Publisher Lawson died in 1925, his wife's nephew Walter Strong and 36 associates bought the paper (against 23 bidders) for $13,500,000. It was recapitalized for $19,000,000. The new $13,000,000 plant, built over the C. & N. W. railway tracks, which it now occupies was leased for 20 years at a yearly rental of $450,000. To earn 5% on its debt, and meet sinking funds and amortization charges, the paper should earn at least $1,450,000 a year. Last year the corporation (including the building and radio station WMAQ) earned $989,002.* But if the financial burdens of the News increased during Publisher Strong's regime, so did its editorial vigor. The paper lost none of its integrity or decency, but did become much brighter than in the days of the ultra-conservative Lawson. Horse race results, forbidden by Publisher Lawson, blossomed on the front page. A mid-week magazine, edited by dapper, energetic Charles Robert Douglas Hardy Andrews, was added to the Wednesday editions. A vigorous campaign against gangsters resulted in the closing of racketeer-owned dog tracks. Its enviable reputation for foreign correspondence was heightened with an expenditure of some $250,000 a year on that feature alone. In circulation (400,136) it is surpassed by its rival in the evening field, Hearst's blatant American; but the News goes after and gets a higher class of reader.

One of the first things done by Publisher Knox after taking office was to call a staff meeting and deny that he proposed to "Hearstify" the News. White-haired Charles Henry Dennis, who looks and acts like a Roman senator, and who has been on the News for 40 years, will continue to closet himself with the editorial page, attacking and revising editorials on a large board laid across his knees. Conservative, sentimental, Editor Dennis personifies the News, a relic of the days of Founder Lawson, the days of Writers Eugene Field, Finley Peter Dunne, George Ade, Keith Preston and Dramacritic Amy Leslie (TIME, Sept. 8). Managing Editor Henry Justin Smith, lean, droop-mustached, with a stride like a camelopard, will continue to run the news staff as he has done for 30 years. He is often visited by his one time Reporters Carl Sandburg (who still writes a column) and Ben Hecht or Critic Hughes, either in his office or at Schlogle's "literary" restaurant where he lunches each Saturday, orders a glass of wine as his concession to being-a-good-fellow, drinks half of it.

Publisher Knox also told his staff that William Randolph Hearst had no financial interest in the purchase of the News. That was not surprising. In the News's full page of congratulatory messages to the new publisher there were greetings from nearly every famed publisher in the U. S., even a telegram from President Hoover, but no word from Mr. Hearst. Even more eloquent was a comparison of news accounts in Manhattan dailies. The Times printed a column-and-a-half story and an editorial on the Knox purchase. The Herald Tribune and Sun gave more than half a column each. Both mentioned prominently the Colonel's former high position with Hearst. But Hearst's American trimmed the A. P. dispatch to five sentences under a small headline: NEW ENGLAND MEN BUY CHICAGO DAILY NEWS. All reference to Hearst was omitted.