The Press: Scripps Tease

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The late, great Edward Wyllis Scripps had three sons, James, John and Robert. Eldest Son Jim quarreled with his father and was packed off with a string of small papers, most of them in the northwest, which became the Scripps League. The Scripps League is now run by his two sons, strapping Edward Wyllis Scripps and lanky James G. Jr. The Scripps boys take themselves seriously, used to write a weekly bulletin called PEP for their staffs, have paid such low wages that once when a publisher begged a raise for a $28-a-week business manager, Jim Scripps wrote back: "Do not think it advisable at this time to disturb salaries in the higher brackets."

In the last two years the Scripps brothers have got rid of two of their newspapers, cutting their chain down to eight. Weakest of these has been the Portland (Ore.) News-Telegram, chief loser in a circulation war between Portland's other two papers, the morning Oregonian and the evening Oregon Journal. To boost the Journal's falling circulation, its shrewd business manager, Simeon Reed Winch, last week did the smartest thing he could do: persuaded the Scripps boys to fold their News-Telegram and took over (for a reported $600,000) its features and circulation. After eliminating duplication, the Journal should get between 20,000 and 25,000 circulation from the News-Telegram, come out of the deal on a par with the Oregonian.

Kept in the dark while negotiations were going on were some 150 News-Telegram employes, all but one of whom at week's end were jobless. Most disgusted of the 149 was Reporter Dave Dryden. Under him the Scripps Spokane Press had folded equally suddenly last spring. Cracked he: "It's the same damn routine—no warning or nothing. I'm getting tired of the Scripps tease. If these sheets keep on folding, they won't have a league left to stand on."