The Press: Meyer's Post

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When the Democratic Party lost the 1928 Presidential election, John Jacob Raskob financed and Charles Michelson directed from Washington a resourceful propaganda bureau which was largely responsible for keeping the blood of life flowing through the palsied Democracy, had not a little to do with the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932. With this knowledge in mind, many an observer guessed that one or both major political parties would be bidding when the Washington Post, once the capital's most influential morning paper, was auctioned at a receiver's sale fortnight ago (TIME. June 12). For an unnamed principal. Lawyer George E. Hamilton bid $825,000, got the paper. He said he would identify the purchaser when the Court confirmed the sale. Last week he did. New owner of the Post: Eugene Meyer, President Hoover's Governor of the Federal Reserve Board.

There seemed to be no question about the motive of the Meyer purchase: a publishing springboard for a G. O. P. come-back in 1936. Although he has been a banker all his life, a government officer since 1917, Publisher Meyer showed considerable editorial sagacity in his first move as owner of the Post. He had news of his ownership withheld until 10 p. m. Rival afternoon papers were on the freight with the story next day.