The Press: Wives as Columnists

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Busy at her chores as Washington society columnist, picture-pretty Austine ("Bootsie") McDonnell Cassini Hearst, 33, has had trouble finding enough time for her children and husband, Publisher William R. Hearst Jr., boss of the 16-newspaper and magazine empire. Last week the family won out. In her column, "Under My Hat," published in the Washington Times-Herald (syndicated to ten other papers as "Washington Whirl"), she wrote: "Ah Washington! After more than ten years of covering the Washington parade ... I shall soon say goodbye to a regular deadline . . . Mostly for two very good reasons−my two little sons [ages four and 16 months]."

Bootsie began her column in 1943 when her first husband, Igor (Cholly Knickerbocker) Cassini, went off to war. But, said she, it "was a luxury from the beginning. Now I find it's a luxury that I can't afford." The Times-Herald had no trouble finding a suitable replacement. The new columnist: Maryland McCormick, 55, wife of Colonel Robert R. McCormick, the Times-Herald (and Chicago Tribune) publisher. Maryland's new column started off this week on a subject on which both she and her predecessor are undisputed experts: publishers' wives. Says Mrs. McCormick, with a touch of the outspokenness that has made her husband famous: "[Publishers' wives] have an excellent sense of humor ... All lords of the press take themselves very seriously, so [we] have taken the lines of least resistance and are gay . . . Most newspapermen think that they form public opinion. This is somewhat true . . . [but] perhaps these little-known wives have more power than is generally known. Is not the female of the species stronger and more deadly than the male? . . . Before the last [G.O.P.] presidential nomination, [Los Angeles Times Publisher Norman Chandler's wife] and I both were against the candidate our so-important husbands had picked [Taft]. Our judgments proved better than theirs, as we picked the winner."