The Press: No Flowers, Please

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Less than two years after the U.S. Treasury's unsuccessful attempt to shutter Manhattan's Communist Daily Worker (TIME, April 9, 1956), the Communist Party succeeded in doing so this week. The tabloid (circ. 5,574) died despite feverish rescue attempts by Editor in Chief (and a party secretary) John W. Gates, 44, who was cut off from party funds in a long-drawn-out squabble (TIME, Jan. 13) with the dominant Stalinist faction led by Party Chief William Z. Foster. As the Daily Worker went, so went Editor Gates's party card. After 27 years in the service of a foreign tyranny, Gates quit, declared that the U.S. Communist Party is finished, "an impotent political sect."

Cracked the New York Daily News in a black-bordered obituary announcement: "Instead of flowers, donations may be sent to any subversive organization on the Attorney General's list." The Daily Worker's only Manhattan survivor: the twelve-page weekly Worker, which still has the party's support.