Taft's Times-Star

For nearly 50 years, Charles Phelps Taft of Cincinnati left his white Georgian house in prim Pike Street each morning and made his way to his newspaper office, the Times-Star. Neat, small, white-bearded, he was secure in the knowledge that his was one of the Great U. S. Families, for if Lowells and Cabots dominate Boston, it may be said in Cincinnati that Tafts speak only to Longworths. Half-brother of the 27th President of the U. S.. a philanthropist and pillar of right in his community, Publisher Taft dedicated his paper to conservative, rock-ribbed Republicanism and civic virtue. A monument to the old, tried order of things was the Times-Star right up to Publisher Taft's death last fortnight.

Between the Times-Star and the Post, the city's other evening newspaper, there exists a state of healthy, oldtime journalistic competition. The Post, with a slightly larger circulation (200,300), is independent, quick to snatch up the torch of popular issues, taking its political cue from the national Scripps-Howard chain to which it belongs. The Times-Star (circulation: 160,500) claims the support of the Best Families, boasts a greater bulk of advertising in its thick pages. Each watches its rival narrowly, trying to scoop city news and beat the other's editions to the street.

The week before Publisher Taft's last illness, Publisher Roy Howard telephoned "the first news story from a ship at sea" from the Leviathan to his syndicate (TIME, Dec. 30). But the week before that, a Miss Ada M. Wheeler, onetime Cincinnati school teacher, "carrying with her credentials of a special correspondent," had engaged the Times-Star's city room in conversation when the Leviathan's ship-to-shore telephone service was inaugurated. Afraid that "a seasick newspaperman on board . . . might recover and 'beat me to it,' " she spoke to Managing Editor Moses Strauss for three minutes, described the introduction of the service. The Times-Star splashed the story of the event across its front page and was not pleased when Publisher Howard's newspapers announced later to their larger audience that they had scored this beat.

Last week, the Times-Star was able to substantiate its priority claim with documentary evidence. Careful Miss Wheeler had obtained and mailed home a testimonial letter signed by J. L. R. Van Meter, Vice President of American Telephone & Telegraph Co. This letter the Times-Star reproduced, explaining: "It is not necessary for a reporter to go on the witness stand or make an affidavit every time he brings a news story into the office. . . . However . . . when a newspaper does something that no newspaper in the world has ever done there are apt to be some doubters. In order to prove its claim that it was the first newspaper in the world to receive a ship-to-shore telephonic message, the Times-Star is producing 'the papers.' "

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