In Iowa

The smart set of Des Moines (pop. 148,900), biggest city in Iowa, often amuse themselves with a parlor game: a modern variation of famed tiddledywinks. An ashtray is placed on the floor. The players (any number from two to eight), equipped with dimes and quarters, squat. In turn, they use their quarters to try to flick their dimes into the ashtray in a graceful arc. It is a game requiring firm thumbs, keen eyes. It was invented by that skillful player, John Cowles, 29, who is to Des Moines what a dynamo is to a powerhouse.

Young Mr. Cowles and his father, Gardner Cowles, have a monopoly of the newspaper business in Des Moines. Their papers, Register (morning and Sunday) and Tribune-Capital (evening), too big for Des Moines, circulate through all Iowa. They are read by more inhabitants of the state where the tall corn grows than any other publications, except possibly the Bible and the Sears, Roebuck catalog.

Since his graduation from Harvard in 1921, young Mr. Cowles has gradually taken over the direction of the two newspapers that his father built up with various consolidations. He has given them a distinctly metropolitan aroma, made their circulations soar, increased subscription rates. For he believes that "the larger the proportion of its revenue a successful newspaper receives from its readers the stronger is that newspaper's position."

Behind his amiable poker-face--and he is one of the better poker players of Des Moines and Manhattan--young Mr. Cowles masks his dynamic qualities. When asked "what's up?" he replies casually: "Not much." Next day, he is apt to buy a newspaper or an airplane.

He did buy an airplane and, last week, it was delivered to his pilot by the Fairchild Aviation Corp. of Farmingdale, Long Island.* The plane is to be used by the Register and Tribune-Capital to get news and pictures, to promote aviation in Iowa. It has an enclosed cabin of six-passenger capacity, a darkroom for development of photographs, wings that can be folded, a Wright Whirlwind motor with maximum speed of 120 m.p.h. Readers of the Register and Tribune-Capital were offered $100 in prizes to suggest a name for the plane.

It is significant that the airplane, instrument of swiftest progress, was purchased by a "24-hour newspaper" (morning and evening combination) and the only newspaper in its city. It is to be used as part of the regular equipment, not as a stunting device to outdo, for the moment, a competitor.

Newspapers throughout the land are becoming fewer and fewer. Many shrewd publishers believe that ultimately there will be only one newspaper in each city of less than 1,000,000 population, but that it will be no less progressive for lack of direct competition. Rather, it will reach out to get the last possible reader in its city and in the smaller surrounding towns.

* The Fairchild firm manufactures an average of one airplane a day, including luxurious passenger planes and sporting flying boats. Out of the 12 planes to reach Greenly Island (where the Bremen is), 10 were Fairchilds.