New .Face For Chicago

New Face For Chicago

On the sixth floor of the Chicago Daily News building, in the office from which the late Publisher Walter Ansel Strong used to look out across the Chicago River, a new occupant, big, sandy-haired and florid, made himself at home last week. Beaming with pride, he alternately jumped to the telephone, plugging one ear against the shriek of tugboat whistles to catch words of congratulation in the other, and strode happily through the flower-decked reception room, the Victor F. Lawson Memorial board room, with its walls and fireplace transplanted from the founder's home. He was Col. William Franklin ("Frank") Knox, president of the thriving Manchester (N. H.) Union & Leader, until last winter general manager of Hearst publications (TIME, Dec. 29). He was proud because he had just become president & publisher of the potent and respected Dally News, succeeding Publisher Strong who died three months ago (TIME, May 18).

First floral offering to be delivered to Col. Knox was a large basket of chrysanthemums--about $25 worth. Who could have sent it? His good friends Senator George Higgins Moses or Col. Hanford MacNider? Publisher McCormick of the Tribune? William Wrigley, Jr.? Adman Albert Davis Lasker? Or even "W. R." (Hearst) himself? The Colonel grubbed eagerly through the bouquet for a card, found none. Then he became aware of a sly smile on the face of a rotund, grey-haired man standing near. Boomed the Colonel: "You old sonofagun! I knew it was you!" and the other man waddled off contentedly.

The "son-of-a-gun" was Theodore T. ("Ted") Ellis, onetime publisher of the Worcester (Mass.) Telegram & Gazette, partner of Col. Knox in buying control of the Daily News from the Strong estate for (reputedly) $2,500,000. It was understood that Mr. Ellis supplied most of the cash (from a fortune estimated near $8,000,000). Knox & Ellis had the support of Rufus Cutler Dawes (brother of the Ambassador) and Chairman Joseph Edward Otis of the Dawes-controlled Central Republic Bank & Trust Co., both of whom were named directors of the News last week.

Observers foresaw a long, hard pull for the owners of the News. When Publisher Lawson died in 1925, his wife's nephew Walter Strong and 36 associates bought the paper (against 23 bidders) for $13,500,000. It was recapitalized for $19,000,000. The new $13,000,000 plant, built over the C. & N. W. railway tracks, which it now occupies was leased for 20 years at a yearly rental of $450,000. To earn 5% on its debt, and meet sinking funds and amortization charges, the paper should earn at least $1,450,000 a year. Last year the corporation (including the building and radio station WMAQ) earned $989,002.* But if the financial burdens of the News increased during Publisher Strong's regime, so did its editorial vigor. The paper lost none of its integrity or decency, but did become much brighter than in the days of the ultra-conservative Lawson. Horse race results, forbidden by Publisher Lawson, blossomed on the front page. A mid-week magazine, edited by dapper, energetic Charles Robert Douglas Hardy Andrews, was added to the Wednesday editions. A vigorous campaign against gangsters resulted in the closing of racketeer-owned dog tracks. Its enviable reputation for foreign correspondence was heightened with an expenditure of some $250,000 a year on that feature alone. In circulation (400,136) it is surpassed by its rival in the evening field, Hearst's blatant American; but the News goes after and gets a higher class of reader.

One of the first things done by Publisher Knox after taking office was to call a staff meeting and deny that he proposed to "Hearstify" the News. White-haired Charles Henry Dennis, who looks and acts like a Roman senator, and who has been on the News for 40 years, will continue to closet himself with the editorial page, attacking and revising editorials on a large board laid across his knees. Conservative, sentimental, Editor Dennis personifies the News, a relic of the days of Founder Lawson, the days of Writers Eugene Field, Finley Peter Dunne, George Ade, Keith Preston and Dramacritic Amy Leslie (TIME, Sept. 8). Managing Editor Henry Justin Smith, lean, droop-mustached, with a stride like a camelopard, will continue to run the news staff as he has done for 30 years. He is often visited by his one time Reporters Carl Sandburg (who still writes a column) and Ben Hecht or Critic Hughes, either in his office or at Schlogle's "literary" restaurant where he lunches each Saturday, orders a glass of wine as his concession to being-a-good-fellow, drinks half of it.

Publisher Knox also told his staff that William Randolph Hearst had no financial interest in the purchase of the News. That was not surprising. In the News's full page of congratulatory messages to the new publisher there were greetings from nearly every famed publisher in the U. S., even a telegram from President Hoover, but no word from Mr. Hearst. Even more eloquent was a comparison of news accounts in Manhattan dailies. The Times printed a column-and-a-half story and an editorial on the Knox purchase. The Herald Tribune and Sun gave more than half a column each. Both mentioned prominently the Colonel's former high position with Hearst. But Hearst's American trimmed the A. P. dispatch to five sentences under a small headline: NEW ENGLAND MEN BUY CHICAGO DAILY NEWS. All reference to Hearst was omitted.

Few persons outside the Hearst organization know exactly why Col. Knox and Publisher Hearst parted after three years association, but those who know the Colonel attribute it to bewilderment and positiveness--bewilderment at the problems of big-city publishing; positiveness that he is always right. The story is that he first won The Chief's pleasure by his economy tactics, lost it when he carried the scheme to the point of firing high-up oldtimers. Col. Knox is exceedingly affable, forceful, dynamic, "Pelmanic." From the days when he rode with the Roughriders in Cuba, Theodore Roosevelt has been his idol. He has a physical examination twice a year, is careful about his diet, drinks cautiously, plays indifferent golf, likes best to ride a Morgan horse. He likes to make speeches, does not speak well; loves jokes of all varieties. His chief interest outside of journalism is his service on the Board of Indian Commissioners (since 1911 when President Taft appointed him). In 1924 he ran for the Republican nomination for Governor of New Hampshire, openly aspired to become U. S. Senator, was disillusioned. In New England, where his Manchester Union thrives, Col. Knox is a celebrity. His neighbors suspect that he could not bear the prospect of remaining there after his brief but spectacular career in the great world, that his pride demanded that he work into metropolitan publishing again.

"To Get Votes"

Day after day last week a perspiring crowd milled about the eighth floor of Los Angeles' dingy Hall of Justice. They bought ice cream bricks from concessionaires, waited for hours in hope of admittance to a stuffy courtroom which held only 65 spectators. Inside the courtroom a prosecutor conducted the tedious business of proving what practically everybody assumed to be true: That former Deputy District Attorney David Harris Clark was the man who fled the Hollywood office of Political Boss Charles H. Crawford just after Crawford and Journalist Herbert F. Spencer were shot to death (TIME, June 1). But what the crowd, and all of southern California, wanted to hear was: What occurred in the office? What political mess underlay the affair? What part was played by the "liberal" magazine,

The Critic of Critics, of which Spencer was managing editor?

Defendant Clark, who knew the answers, had uttered not a word since he surrendered for arrest three months ago, few days before the election in which he was a candidate for municipal judge. (In that election, while he sat behind bars, 67,000 Los Angelenos voted for him. He was not elected.) Now, at last, he took the stand. Calm but deathly white, he came quickly to his point: He shot Crawford & Spencer in self defense. Said he:

"Crawford told me he wanted me to take Roy Steckel, the chief of police, my friend, out to a place and frame him. I told Crawford, 'You damn dirty dog! You low down skunk! I'm going to ... preach to the world over the radio everything that's happened in this room.' Crawford told me 'No can talk to me

that way.' He reached for his gun. I shot him. Crawford yelled 'Get him, Herb!' I saw Spencer coming from behind me, reaching for his gun. I shot him too."

Defendant Clark also told of threats by Crawford & Spencer that "something would happen to him" if, in his campaign speeches for judgeship, he did not "lay off" his charges that an organized gambling ring and a vice syndicate controlled the city's politics. He pictured Spencer not as a martyred news-crusader but as a political blackmailer; not a Mellett but a sort of Lingle. Under crossexamination, however, Defendant Clark made a remark which made the whole case seem futile and tragic. Asked Prosecutor Joseph Ford: "You didn't believe your talks against the 'underworld' would incur the hostility of anyone, or hurt anyone?"

"Well, I don't know. I was just talking to get votes."

Squabbles & Streetsales

Newspaper circulation wars broke out last week in two cities.

In Columbus, Ohio the evening Dispatch cut its price from 2-c- t01-c- without announcing its reason which was, obviously, to harass its only evening competitor, the Scripps-Howard Citizen. The Citizen did not meet the reduction, instead accused the Dispatch of striking out not for economic reasons but because of a political feud between the two. The Citizen had begun a campaign for removal of Probate Judge Homer C. Bostwick. whose good friend is Publisher Harry Preston Wolfe of the Dispatch and the morning Ohio State Journal. It offered evidence that the judge had forced a young woman to return a diamond ring he had given her on threat of prosecution. When the Citizen's first story appeared the Dispatch notified the Citizen that edition agreements were off, followed with the price cut.

In Philadelphia newsboys wore large placards with the legends: "Buy the Record . . . Help Break the Monopoly . . . Protect the Newsboy." Reason: newsboys were told that if they persisted in carrying the bulldog (early) editions of the lusty Record, they would not be served with Curtis-Martin Ledgers (morning, evening & Sunday) and Inquirer. Curtis-Martin's reason: the Record was bringing its bulldog out too early.

*Earnings for 1928, $1,880,704; 1929, $1,227,409.

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