Lady Rothermere's Dream

It was a trying day for the brand-new Lady Rothermere. Bewitching in the rose straw hat the Duchess of Westminster had brought her from Paris, she gave a party at the Dorchester to hear the election returns -- and the news was a Labor sweep. Almost worse was the arrival of Lady Diana Duff Cooper, fresh from Paris, wearing an exact duplicate of the rose straw.

Fleet Street took a longer view. Hats and elections could come & go, but was this pretty, vivacious, 32-year-old woman about to rewrite a chapter of British news paper history? Her fondest hope had be come common knowledge: to spur her 47-year-old husband's Daily Mail back into the all but lost struggle with Lord Beaverbrook's Daily Express, and win the top in the mass circulation field.

Right & Left. When she was the wife of Lord Shane O'Neill, she would scarcely have been interested. She was busy making the rounds of English country houses, romping on the Riviera, sampling the Paris styles and setting a few herself. Ann O'Neill had a mind of her own, and sometimes it got her into trouble. "I thrive," she told friends, "on my antagonisms."

Gloomy Esmond Cecil Harmsworth, second Viscount Rothermere, found her delightful. After he divorced his first wife, she became his weekend party hostess at Mereworth Castle in Kent.

She also induced Lord Rothermere to tilt his nose a little more toward the grindstone. After his father's death in 1940 he began showing up at Northcliffe House at 10 in the morning, stayed till after 6 at night. The policy of the Daily Mail, which had been friendly to fascism in his father's time, supported the anti-fascist war, at times seemed hostile to the U.S., wobbled along apparently undecided whether to go right or left.

Night & Day. Eight months after Lieut. Colonel Lord O'Neill died leading a regiment in Italy, his widow became Lady Rothermere. Now Fleet Street generally agrees that the Daily Mail is being run by two boards of directors--the official daytime board at Northcliffe House and an advisory nighttime board at the Dorchester. Politicians consider the Dorchester directorate important enough to court.

Lady Rothermere is not always discreet about the things she hears at her private board meetings. Confidential information given Esmond at the Mail office often finds its way about town. But despite these lapses, Lady Rothermere keeps her eye on the main job--building Rothermere into a better Beaverbrook.

In the final analysis her dream depends on Lord Rothermere's willingness to hustle. Shy (except when making a speech), he has never shown any real interest in the routine details of the business, never covered a fire or managed a department. He can write well when he wants to, has occasionally done first-rate editorials. But mostly he has just sat on the top dais, expressing his likes & dislikes.

Right now the daily trips to the office are becoming more & more irksome. He is longing to get away from the job, to travel, study, read. Whether he does or not may well depend on the stuff that the dream is made of. For the moment that is under Lady Rothermere's hat.

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