Revolution?

When he got home last week from his trip to the Orient, Colonel Robert R. McCormick found a reception committee waiting on the sidewalk. They were pickets from the International Typographical Union, on strike against the Trib and five other major Chicago dailies. The Colonel walked past them into his Tribune Tower.

With somewhat less ease the Chicago papers had also bypassed the printers. In three weeks of strike, the papers had worked the major kinks out of the new photoengraving (VariType) process that had replaced typesetting. Papers were normal size, and readers who had complained about the typed look now liked it: they found the bigger type easier to read. As it took up more space, editors had to sharpen their stories.

The process was more expensive than typesetting (one estimate was about 30% more) but the cost was dropping fast. Though it might take five years to make it as cheap and efficient as linotype, some editors thought it had already caused "a revolution." Said one: "One sure change will be the use of larger type. Let this machine be developed a little more, and the cost of starting a newspaper will be very little. Instead of $50,000 or $100,000 for linotype machines to start a smalltown paper, I'll bet you could start one for $10,000 with Vari-Type. And you could put out a damned good-looking paper." But it would not look so good to the I.T.U. This week, with 15 dailies struck in eight cities, the National Labor Relations Board was reported ready to ask the courts to ban I.T.U. strikes.

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