A Knuckle-Dusting from Bertie

With the confidence of an experienced brawler, Democratic National Chairman Frank E. McKinney last week slipped on his knuckle-dusters and tore into Colonel "Bertie" McCormick's Chicago Tribune. McKinney's speech at a $100-a-plate Democratic dinner in Chicago was broadcast over the Tribune's radio station, WGN, and reported in the Trib itself (from an advance copy). Shouted McKinney: "If the voters of this great city had to rely upon the Chicago Tribune as their only source of news, then they would be as badly misinformed as those unhappy millions behind the Iron Curtain . . .

"There is more than one similarity between the Tribune and the Russian mouthpiece, Pravda. Both of them edit the news to fit a party line . . . When Russia starts a shooting war, Stalin blames the United States and Harry Truman. So does the Chicago Tribune. When the United Nations takes an effective step toward insuring peace by resisting aggression . . . both Stalin and McCormick attack the United Nations. At the Chicago Tribune they sit up all night figuring out new ways to sneer at our Government's program for world peace . . ."

When the Democrats left the banquet hall, the newsstands were already piled high with Tribunes carrying McCormick's counter punch. From the eminence of a Page One box (next to the report of McKinney's speech), Bertie McCormick jabbed: "The Tribune during the last two days has shown McKinney up as a crook. He has tried to muddy the water by telling lies about the Tribune and me."

Then Bertie, an old hand with a knuckle-duster, knocked the wind right out of McKinney. On page seven, Bertie ran a series of apologetic statements from Chicago Democrats.

Said Mayor Martin H. Kennelly: "While the Tribune is a Republican newspaper and I am a Democrat, they have treated my administration . . . fairly and squarely. My experience has never been such as to lead me to [McKinney's] conclusions."

Said Democratic Boss Jake Arvey: "While I was Cook County Democratic chairman, I experienced no trouble in getting the Tribune to print Democratic news . . . They always gave us fair coverage." Six other top Democratic politicians said the same thing.*

Next morning, McKinney snapped: "McCormick's statement will be retracted, or else." The Tribune refused to retract, but it dropped its epithet "crook" in favor of "get-rich-quick boy," and settled back to survey the rift that had been made between Chicago's Democrats and the new man Harry Truman had run in to boss the National Committee.

* Illinois' able, freewheeling Governor Adlai Stevenson, not to be stampeded, commented: "The Tribune is entitled to its views about the world, but pray God they don't prevail now any more than they did in 1863, when the publisher said we could not win the Civil War."

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