Vanderbilt Down

Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr.--young publisher, editor and scion, who was so hopeful (TIME, May 10) that the crisis would be tided over --the crisis brought upon his many little newspapers by the fact that his father, General Vanderbilt, was tired of losing money in them --found his ships miscarried, his creditors grown cruel, his estate very low. First a potential purchaser of the Illustrated Daily Herald of San Francisco failed to come to terms with him and the paper suspended publication. The Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News, the first paper he started and his best, went into receivership; the San Francisco paper shrank from 22 to 8 smudgy pages, and then suspended. General Vanderbilt made no statement.

Cornelius Jr. announced, however, that his creditors were extending him time, and that two "large financial houses" in Manhattan had voluntarily laid plans before him for financing the papers. He also made public a telegram from Mayor Rolph of San Francisco: "I hope with many thousands of other San Franciscans that matters will soon adjust themselves and that once more we can have the Herald as a part of our daily lives. No one knows better than I how hard and how unceasingly you have worked, and I cannot but feel that ultimate success will crown your efforts."

Mr. Vanderbilt was down, not out.