Gadfly with a Sting

All Joseph A. Maloney wanted when he retired at 52 to Apalachicola, Fla., was a little fishing and the easy life. That was understandable. He had led anything but a peaceful existence as a crusading Indiana newspaper reporter and publisher, a U.S. intelligence agent just after World War II, and as a correspondent for the New York Daily News. Yet, when he tried to settle down to the relaxed life of a pensioner, the drab, rundown condition of Apalachicola set his hackles rising. The little Gulf town "was so depressed," he recalls, "that the only way it could go was up." What was holding it down, he decided, was the $900 million Alfred I. du Pont estate that dominates the six-county area around Apalachicola on the Florida panhandle.

In the 1920s, Alfred I. du Pont broke away from the rest of his Delaware-based family and moved to Florida, where he used his money to start several banks. After his death in 1935, the trustees expanded his holdings, until today the Du Pont estate includes a string of utilities and industries, plus 1,000,000 choice acres of pine forest. Overseeing this domain was Du Font's brother-in-law, Edward Ball, 77, one of the most powerful men in the state. Maloney was unawed, and craved action. In 1959, he bought a weekly, the Apalachicola Times, to prod the Du Pont interests.

Delinquent Taxes. By keeping so many acres tied up in timber, Maloney said, Du Pont was shutting out new industry and preventing the development of beach front that could attract much-needed tourist dollars. Beyond that, he insisted, the Du Pont interests were not paying their fair share of taxes. While Du Pont land was assessed at $20 an acre, adjacent non-Du Pont land was assessed at $100 an acre. When Maloney revealed that the Du Pont-owned St. Joe Paper Co. held assets that were undervalued by $90 million, the embarrassed company was forced to pay $153,317 in back taxes.

From time to time, other Florida newspapers had criticized Ed Ball and the Du Pont estate, but none so persistently as the Apalachicola Times. Even as a weekly with a circulation of only 2,100, the gadfly stung, and Du Pont tried to swat it. Roy Gibson, vice president of Du Pont's St. Joseph Telephone & Telegraph Co., charged in a public speech that Maloney was pursuing an "unprogressive anti-business policy" in his paper. Maloney replied with a $200,000 libel suit. Arguing that his paper had constantly urged new business for Apalachicola, he testified that he had gone to Washington on his own initiative to persuade the Area Redevelopment Administration to designate Apalachicola a "depressed area." As a result, the town received federal funds to help build a $120,000 water tank and a $1,250,000 seafood-processing plant. Maloney was awarded libel damages of $15,000. "People around here used to make the sign of the cross at the mere mention of Ed Ball's name," crowed Maloney. "At least I convinced 'em that the baron isn't invincible."

Cluttered Quarters. Reserved and soft-spoken when he is not behind his typewriter, Maloney puts out a four-page blend of local, regional and national news, characteristically provocative editorials, a humor column entitled "Grins and Grits," and a sprinkling of local ads 52 Fridays a year. At 65, he feels perfectly at home in the slow-paced, only occasionally combative life of Apalachicola. In turn, the townspeople feel at home with him, and only wish from time to time that he would cut down on his crusading. "Why don't you print more local news," a friend once asked him, "and stop stirring up so much about Ed Ball?" Parried Maloney: "If you can find anything more local than Ed Ball, show it to me and I'll print it."

Maloney presently publishes in a cluttered shack containing a flat-bed press and a captain's desk from an abandoned riverboat. Before the end of the summer, he plans to move into a new $100,000 offset-printing plant and perhaps start a second paper. "We haven't even scratched the surface here," he says. "And I plan to keep at it until we get the Apalachicola economy on the move."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.