Press: Silent Suit

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Publisher Paul Block is a squat, sallow, bald little Punch. Stray strands of grey criss-cross his polished dome, its grey fringe bristles when he gets excited, which is often. He pleasantly insists that friendships are his "hobby." One great & good friend whom he has long had is William Randolph Hearst. Partly with Hearst money, Mr. Block acquired nine substantial dailies* by 1931.

No publisher but knew of this profitable friendship between two stubborn individualists, and two years ago David Stern's New York Post flatly described Mr. Block as a "Hearst stooge." But since 1931 Mr. Block has reduced his holdings to Newark, Pittsburgh and Toledo, says that what he runs he owns. So Mr. Block's grey fringe bristled when Robert S. Allen, sharpshooting Washington columnist, wrote last September in the Nation:

"The expose of Justicé Hugo Black's onetime membership in the Ku Klux Klan was a deliberate conspiracy. . . . Parties to the conspiracy were the Hearst stooge Paul Block [and others]. . . . The sensational stories carried the by-line of a Block reporter, but their real author was Frank Prince, onetime Hearst reporter and now operator of a private detective agency. . . ."

Promptly Publisher Block demanded a retraction. He got only a few meagre words of regret. Doggedly bent on satisfaction, Mr. Block instituted a $900,000 libel suit against the Nation and Mr. Allen. Up to this week no paper had published news of the action, for both plaintiff and defendants neatly avoided publicity by keeping the complaint out of court. If Mr. Block hoped that quietly starting suit against the Nation—which would be flattered if anyone thought it had $900,000— would smoke out a retraction, he guessed wrong. Last week the Nation's attorneys, most famed of whom is liberal Lawyer Morris Ernst, were diligently preparing to tight the case to a finish.