Crowell-Collier's Christmas

In Manhattan's Crowell-Collier Building one day last week, employees lingered at their desks long after their day's work was done. Above them, on the 18th floor, the company's board of directors was deciding the fate of the long-ailing fortnightly Collier's and the monthly Woman's Home Companion. As the hours wore on, some staffers broke out bottles to brace them selves for the expected shock. At 10:30 it came. Board Chairman and Editor in Chief Paul Smith announced that Collier's would fold with the Jan. 4 issue and the Companion with the January issue, both out this week.

Out of jobs immediately were 440 editorial, advertising and business-office staffers, plus 2,300 printing-plant employees, who would be fired this week. Said Collier's Writer Theodore White: "No severance pay, no contractual pensions, no benefits, nothing for anybody. Turned out cold almost on Christmas Eve." Employees--many of whom had worked for the company for more than 20 years--were told that management would review their proposals for severance pay this week. But many feared that the paychecks they had received only a few hours earlier would be their last. Up on a bulletin board went a black-lettered card: "We regret to inform you that there is no Santa Claus."

It would have taken a Santa with a bag of $15 million to $20 million to save Crowell-Collier's fast-failing magazines (1956 deficit: $7,500,000). In the past ten years, as Crowell-Collier went from a profit of $6,500,000 to heavy losses, managing editors had swept in and out of office like French Premiers. More than $10 million in new capital had been pumped into the company since 1953, when aging Wonder Boy Paul Smith, now 48, came in from the money-losing San Francisco Chronicle as a $40,000-a-year troubleshooter. Smith raised money and tried to make Collier's a "magazine in depth." Instead, it went deeper into debt. Transformed into a fortnightly in 1953, Collier's lost more than $15 million, while editors and writers struggled to translate Smithology ("We want scope not scoop") into a working policy for the magazine. But Collier's never succeeded in developing a winning personality. In 1953, for the first time, the Companion also tripped into the red.

Empire Building. Only last summer the company sacrificed the American Magazine (TIME, July 9), strongest of the three, in hopes of beefing up its weak sisters. Largely as a result of dividing American subscriptions, Collier's circulation climbed 9% (to 4,165,000) while the Companion gained 5% (to 4,225,000). But advertisers were leary. Collier's ran only 1,008 ad pages in 1956 v. 1,718 in 1951; in the same period, Companion advertising dropped from 945 pages to 544. Their losses turned a record $6,000,000 profit claimed by Crowell-Collier's book-publishing subsidiary (Collier's Encyclopedia, the Harvard Classics) into a $2,500,000 deficit for the company this year.

Undismayed, Booster Smith announced plans for a communications empire that would include newspapers, a weekly newsmagazine, a TV and radio chain, make Crowell-Collier "the biggest, richest and most influential publishing house in America." Last month, after announcing that Crowell-Collier was acquiring seven TV and radio stations, Smith was unable to raise the cash.

The decision to scuttle the magazines and salvage the book division was reached by a group of Manhattan and Chicago industrialists, who had put $4,600,000 into the company last year. The group, headed by Financier J. Patrick Lannan, could have gained control of the company by converting its debentures into 600,000 shares of common stock, although actual control (400,000 shares) was in the hands of Manhattan's Publication Corp., whose subsidiary publishes This Week magazine. Last week Lannan's group and Publication Corp. got together to save what they could of Crowell-Collier.

Gibson Girls & Cowboys. Cowles Magazines, Inc. (Look) agreed to pay $1,000,-ooo for the magazine title Collier's and for Crowell-Collier's Reader's Service, a subscription company that sold Collier's and other magazines. Cowles also lent Crowell-Collier $1,000.000. In addition, Cowles agreed to assume responsibility for $11 million worth of unexpired Collier's subscriptions, said that former Collier's readers will have the choice of taking Look or "any one of several other magazines" or, if they insisted, cash refunds. Hearst's Good Housekeeping and McCall's were dickering for Companion subscriptions; Curtis Publishing Co. (Saturday Evening Post, Ladies' Home Journal) was expected to enter the negotiations this week. Crowell-Collier also planned to sell its Springfield, Ohio printing plant (estimated worth: $6,500,000).

For Collier's, which built its reputation as a fighting journal, it was a tame end. Founded by an immigrant Bible salesman named Peter Fenelon Collier in 1888 (original title: Once A Week), Collier's sent Correspondent Richard Harding Davis to cover the Russo-Japanese War at $1,000 a week, uncovered phony medicines and phony politicians, fought for income taxes, woman suffrage and a host of other causes. It published Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, hired Charles Dana Gibson to draw Gibson girls (at $1,000 a drawing) and Frederic Remington to paint cowboy scenes. In 1919 the magazine was sold to Crowell Publishing Co. (whose predecessor firm had bought Companion in 1885), turned from art and exposes to cartoons and light fiction. Circulation tumbled, recovered under able Editor William Ludlow Chenery (1925-43), started down again after World War II.

Helpful Hints. Woman's Home Companion was founded in Cleveland in 1873. One of the early service magazines, it was loaded with helpful hints and departments ranging from Mother's Corner to Flowers, Care and Culture. Companion also carried serials by such women writers as Edna Ferber and Willa Gather. In recent years the staid Companion had lost ground to such rivals as Ladies' Home Journal, Good Housekeeping and McCall'.s.

All that was definitely left of Crowell-Collier was a record-club division, Los Angeles Radio Station KFWB, a leasehold on the Crowell-Collier Building (worth up to $800,000), and P. F. Collier & Son Corp., the book-publishing subsidiary, which, said Lannan, a director of Manhattan publisher Henry Holt &

Co,, "we fully intend to carry on indefinitely." Paul Smith remained as board chairman, president and editor in chief. But he was expected to leave as soon as he finished picking up the pieces.

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