Block Buys

Paul Block, owner of five dailies, last week took his opportunity to buy the Milwaukee Sentinel, only morning paper there. Thereby he shut out William Randolph Hearst who, it is rumored, had had a five-year option on that "second oldest daily in the northwest" (established 1837 by Laurent Solomon Juneau. one of Milwaukee's first white settlers). And. thereby, Charles F. Pfister, Milwaukee meat packer, got rid of a newspaper in which he had lost interest. Retained on the Sentinel were Judge A. C. Backus as vice president and Julius Liebman as managing editor. But Mr. Block sent Michael Francis Hanson, publisher of his Duluth Herald, to be the Sentinel's general manager. The Sentinel men have the handicap of being within the circulation area of the Chicago newspapers. Nonetheless they can count on a trading district of more than one million, which is peculiarly Milwaukee's. Within that area the Sentinel, whose circulation is now only 72,279, can aim at the dispersion of Harry Johnston Grant's Milwaukee Journal (evenings: 169,039; Sundays: 219,495).