The Press: Iowa Formula

(See front cover)

When the Cowles family of Des Moines bought the Minneapolis Star last fortnight (TIME, June 24), they acquired the third and weakest newspaper in that community. To them that was no cause for discouragement. Their money-making Des Moines Register & Tribune, which today blankets Iowa like that State's own rich, black topsoil, was also third and weakest when Gardner Cowles Sr. picked it up 32 years ago.

Gardner Cowles was then 42, with six children and not much money. A small-town banker in Algona, in northern Iowa, he had taught school...