A Castle for the Princess

One day last week the Chicago Tribune's Bertie McCormick flew to the alien East for a brief look at his new outpost, the Washington Times-Herald (circ. 278,000), and a visit with some old friends. Over mint juleps and charcoal-broiled beefsteaks at a party given by Nevada's Senator George Malone, Colonel McCormick casually dropped a nugget of news.

For a long time, rumbled the Colonel, he'd been trying to get Washington into the U.S. "Now," he said, "I'm sending the U.S. to Washington." McCormick, who has no children, was turning over the Times-Herald to his favorite niece and crown princess of Chicagoland, 28-year-old Ruth Elizabeth McCormick Miller. Bertie could hardly have found anyone more American or more Midwestern than "Bazy" Miller, who is the granddaughter of President-Maker (and U.S. Senator) Mark Hanna, the daughter of Senator Medill McCormick and Representative Ruth Hanna McCormick Simms.

For the flamboyant Times-Herald, it would mean a return to the distaff rule that the newspaper had known for eleven whirling-dervish, moneymaking years under the late Eleanor Medill ("Cissy") Patterson. But there the resemblance ended: in temperament and talent, Bazy and her distant cousin were as different as sugar and spice.

Twenties for Toft. A plain, unexcitable, grey-eyed blonde, Bazy parts her bobbed hair in the middle, does not worry herself too much about what the well-dressed woman should wear, expresses her urge for personal ornamentation by wearing spangle-studded glasses and chunks of costume jewelry. She got her elementary lessons in journalism as an 18-year-old reporter on her mother's Rockford (Ill.) morning Star, covering everything from farm news to a "dance-athon," and writing two columns. In 1941, Bazy married Maxwell Peter Miller Jr., now 30, a socialite defense-plant worker, University of Chicago graduate and ex-ranch hand.

In 1946, Bazy and Peter bought two small Illinois dailies in Peru and nearby La Salle. When Bazy found that they had the same readers and that she was competing with herself, she merged them into the profitable La Salle News-Tribune (circ. 15,674). Peter kept an eye on the business side because, says Bazy, "I never come closer than three zeros on any figures." She ran the nine-man editorial staff and wrote a daily column of chitchat about her two children, her 14-room house, her favorite philanthropies and her blooded Arabian horses. Says Bazy: "You meet a lot of interesting people breeding Arabian horses." A fervent Republican, Bazy organized the 1948 "Twenties for Taft" clubs, kept the News-Tribune toeing the GOParty line.

Carry On. All the while, Bertie had his eye on her. In 1947, at his 68th birthday party, he asked his niece to stand up in front of the 170 guests. "Bazy," the Colonel intoned, "tradition has an important part in every organization. And when 15 or 20 years from now, I am no longer [here], Ruth Elizabeth--Bazy--will be carrying on the tradition of [Tribune Dynasty Founder] Joseph Medill . . ."

Last week the crown princess and her prince consort looked over their new domain in Washington. Bazy sat down with Editor-in-Chief Frank Waldrop, 43, one of the seven "faithful employees" who sold out to the Colonel after Cissy willed them the paper. She praised him for the way he was running the paper, and persuaded all seven to stay on for the present as hired hands. Cautiously refraining from throwing her 118 Ibs. around right away, Publisher Miller diplomatically announced that she planned to submit some of her columns to Editor Waldrop to "see if they're any good."

A true niece of Bertie McCormick, Bazy could not resist a pat on the back for the Midwest as "the heart and soul and stability of the country" and the back of her hand for Washington, which she called "a parasite community." But she thought it her duty to settle among the parasites. As Bertie said: he and Bazy owed it to the U.S.--at a time when "the Administration and the State Department are disloyal"--to present "the American point of view in Washington."

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