The Press: Charity Begins . . .

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Three years ago the tycoon-hating Washington Post and Times Herald, enraged by the way Washington's transit company board chairman. Financier Louis E. Wolfson, was running the buses and streetcars, said so in three editorials. Sample: "His tactics, indeed the whole Wolfson operation of a once-sound company, have been a hark-back to the robber baron days of the last century." Financier Wolfson promptly sued for $30 million. The Post was unabashed: "We shall continue to exercise our full right to criticize him."

Last week, in a humbler mood, the Post ran another editorial about Tycoon Wolfson. Asserting that it was doing so to avoid expensive and protracted litigation, the paper announced it was contributing $25,000 to a Wolfson charity, the Baptist Memorial Hospital in Jacksonville. "On his part," said the Post, "Mr. Wolfson is withdrawing the suit without any payment to him.''