Press: Double Knockout?

The Brooklyn Eagle strike, first test of the Newspaper Guild's strength against a New York City daily, ended last week in what appeared to be a double knockout. At least both sides were groggy from breaking their hands on each other in over three months of stubborn fighting.

Gained by the Guild was a contract guaranteeing that of the 206 strikers, 166 will be rehired, the other 40 fired, given 20 weeks' severance pay. The Guild had demanded, but did not get, a preferential shop. And the Guild put an awful dent in its treasury supporting the strike at $3,000 a week.

Financially the Eagle took the most terrible beating. The Guild's most effective strike activity was a campaign to cut Eagle advertising, conducted with all the originality the newspapermen could give it. Pickets in full dress stalked before Manhattan theatres advertising in the Eagle, a hairy "gorilla" picketed a beauty shop until its distressed owner got an injunction against such tactics. Picketing of Brooklyn and Manhattan stores, plus a "consumers campaign" against national advertisers, undoubtedly cost the Eagle most of the 184,000 lines of advertising it dropped in the past three weeks.

What the Eagle strike seemed to prove was that a publisher could get out his paper without the Guild, but that even though he escapes the Guild's full demands, the possible financial loss is terrific. Last week many Guild members thought they had so clipped the Eagle's wings it would soon be in receivership. Mr. Goodfellow's retort: "If there was the remotest possibility, do you think I would spend $30,000 in severance pay?"