Power and the Press (Cont.)

Following the disclosures of Archibald Robertson Graustein, who told of International Paper & Power Co's investing more than ten million dollars in 13 newspapers (TIME, May 13), the Federal Trade Commission last week called two of the publishers who had been financed, to tell their story.

The two publishers, young men both, were William LaVarre, former circulation promoter of the New York Times and New York World, and Harold Hall, former business manager of the New York Telegram. They told of purchasing four papers: the Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, the Columbia (S. C.) Record, the Spartanburg (S. C.) Herald and Journal. All purchases were for cash and the entire sum, $870,000, was supplied by International Paper & Power Co. In exchange they gave their notes which were secured by the stock of the newspapers as collateral, although the actual certificates were not turned over. In no case did they tell the sellers who was putting up the money.

They also told of attempted purchases of other papers in the same general region, including the Asheville Citizen and the Atlanta Constitution.

Dislikers of the Power Trust remarked that although International Paper & Power Co. does not sell power in the Carolinas and Georgia, the papers purchased by LaVarre and Hall are all in or near the Piedmont waterpower section of the southeast.

The Federal Trade Commission also planned to call two more publishers, two more paper tycoons. The publishers are: Frank Ernest Gannett, owner of 17 chain-papers, who distinguished himself a fortnight ago, not by announcing that International Paper & Power Co. had bought stock in four of his papers, but by announcing that he had bought back such stock from I. P. & P. (TIME, May 13): and Samuel Emory Thomason, co-owner of Bryan-Thomason Newspaper Publishers, Inc. (Chicago Journal, Greensboro, N. C., Record, Tampa, Fla., Tribune) in which are one million Graustein dollars.