Merger

The urge to consolidate, ever uppermost in the heart of Frank A. Munsey, led to another journalistic union--but not under Mr. Munsey's banner. Without a word of warning, without the usual preliminary tremors of. rumor, it was announced that Ogden M. Reid, owner of the New York Tribune had bought The New York Herald (Mr. Munsey's property since 1920) and that they would be combined on the follow-ing morning. The Paris edition of the Herald was also sold to Mr. Reid.

Thus the only two Republican morning papers in Manhattan were combined. Mr. Munsey denied that the purchase price was $4,000,000, the amount which Mr. Munsey paid for the Herald, its Paris edition and The New York Evening Telegram. The last official figures on circulation (October, 1923) credited the Tribune with 133,230 and the Herald with 165,719.

The history of the combined papers as told by the Tribune:

The Herald, founded by James Gordon Bennett in 1835, and owned by Frank Munsey since 1920, won its name by giving to journalism the first complete "news service" in the modern sense. Under Mr. Munsey it gained a virile editorial policy and enormously increased its influence.

The Tribune, under Horace Greeley and Whitelaw Reid, has had in its 83 years of life a lasting effect upon the destinies of the nation.

In this merger, too, are the individuality and tradition of another famous morning paper, Charles A. Dana's Sun, absorbed by The New York Herald in 1920, and perpetuating its name today in one of the strongest evening newspapers in the country. There is also included The Press, a pioneer in the reporting of American sport.

The consolidation under Mr. Reid was really brought about by his refusal to sell his own paper. He and Mr. Munsey each wanted to buy the other's paper. But Mr. Reid refused, absolutely, to sell, because the Tribune was his father's paper and he was determined to keep it as a family tradition. So Mr. Munsey yielded.

Now Mr. Munsey has only two newspapers of the 17 which he has possessed at one time or another : The Sun (Manhattan, evening) and The New York Telegram and Evening Mail. And the Great Consolidator commented:

"New York has continued longer in its multiplicity of newspapers than any other big town in the country. Chicago, that once had five or six morning papers, has now returned to two. St. Louis with four or five at one time finally came down to two. After struggling along with two for ten years, one had to go by the board and become amalgamated with the other. Now the great town of St. Louis has only one.

"The same is true of Denver and

New Orleans, Indianapolis, Cleveland,

Detroit, and so it goes."

Incidentally, the composing room of the New York Herald-Tribune will have

probably the oldest personnel of any in the country. Union rules require that when a consolidation occurs the senior members of each are retained. The Herald has in its composing room the senior members from the old Herald, the Sun, the Press. The Tribune's compositors are not young. The compositors of the Herald-Tribune will perforce be venerable if not hoary with age.