The Press: The Common Touch

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week, music piped in for 15 minutes of every hour, a cafeteria with low-priced good food. (There used to be a free mid-morning snack of milk and vitamin-enriched peanut-butter sandwiches, but the staff began to look like sofas.) On the walls of individual offices, and in the corridors, hang paintings by such modern masters as Renoir, Braque and Chagall. "My God!" cried an astounded visitor. "Is this a place of business or a girls' seminary?"

Lila also suggested the four green, winged horses which adorn the Digest building's 32-ft. white cupola and have since become the Digest emblem. "It was a happy thought," says Lila, "because according to the myth, when Pegasus stamps his little feet, writers get their inspiration."

But writers and editors of the Digest get their inspiration from something more tangible than Pegasus. Rovers may get $10,000 to $20,000 a year as a salary, plus a minimum of $1,200 for each article published, plus bonuses. Wallace encourages them to travel wherever they fancy, at the Digest's expense. When Roving Editor Lois Mattox Miller asked Wallace if she might take a trip to Georgia, he said: "What are you asking me for? You can go anywhere in the world." Now Mrs. Miller seems to feel she is cheating the Digest if she doesn't go to Europe at least once a year. A stock Digest joke has four Rovers meeting in the middle of the Sahara, and finding that they are all on the same story. Along with bonuses, Wally sends his editors and Rovers warm notes of praise. An "especially fine job of cutting" may bring his note that an editor "deserves the Distinguished Service Medal." Especially pleased with Rover Miller, author of an article on needless tonsillectomies, he wrote her: "If you ever have your tonsils taken out, can I have them in a bottle to keep on my dresser? I could even love them after your latest wonderful article."

Clutched Hands. Wallace pays outsiders well also. For every article digested, he pays the writer a minimum of $200 per Digest page; the magazine may get $800 a page. The Digest's senior editors reportedly get anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000 a. year, and sometimes half as much again in bonuses. Salaries and bonuses vary widely. Wallace keeps his staff guessing on their pay. One year Executive

Editor Payne drew a salary of $34,400 and a bonus of $87,600; in a later year, he got a salary of $84,500 but no bonus. In one year Al Cole got a salary of $99,500, two years later got $84,500. Wallace has paid himself a salary of $99,500 in some years, in other years didn't get enough to be listed on the Treasury's $75,000-plus list (Lila never has drawn enough to get listed). All the Digest's 1,060 regular employees are covered by a liberal pension plan, and by life-insurance policies.

Few are fired from the Digest. One man in the London office was reluctantly let go only after he had failed to show up for eight weeks. The Wallaces, being childless, have no desire to accumulate great wealth. "The dead," Wallace is fond of saying, "carry with them to the grave in their clutched hands only that which they have given away." His father lived to be 90, and at 62, Wallace is going strong. But in preparation for the day their turn comes, he and Lila are gradually turning over their stock to a charitable