New Colyumist

When the late, public-spirited Walter Simpson Dickey of Kansas City, rich manufacturer of brick & clay products, bought the Kansas City Journal and Post ten years ago, he announced that he had sold all his stockholdings in public service corporations and quasi-public enterprises. His reason: no newspaper publisher could effectively serve his Public if he has any share in the "Interests." Had Publisher Dickey been alive last week, readers of the Journal-Post might not have seen what they did: an announcement that Henry Latham Doherty, crafty, bearded president of far-flung Cities Service Co. had bought a half-interest in the paper to give battle to his arch enemies the Kansas City Star and Governor Harry Woodring of Kansas (TIME, July 20 et seq.).

Bristle-whiskered Tycoon Doherty did not want to get control of the paper. In fact, he contracted to let 10% of his stock be without vote. What he wanted and got was the status of "special contributing editor," with the right to "insert as editorials anything that I think proper" without any censorship. He assumed personal responsibility for any libel suits he might cause, and the Journal-Post editors are entitled to dispute him in columns adjoining his.

The flavor to be expected by Colyumist Doherty's colyums was indicated by a double-page spread in the Journal-Post, a copy of a fierce letter from Tycoon Doherty to the trustees of the Star, which had agitated the fight in Kansas to slash Cities Service gas rates. (The trustees--Secretary of Agriculture Arthur Mastick Hyde, Jesse Clyde Nichols & Herbert B. Jones--had negotiated the sale of the Star by the estate of the late Founder William Rockhill Nelson to the present employes and management, headed by snake-hating George Baker Longan.) Excerpts from the letter:

"Unless this campaign has been an act of unbelievable stupidity, it is primarily an attempt to perpetuate the reign of terror that the Kansas City Star is determined to maintain. ... I can prove that the Star has deliberately colored the news, has misrepresented the facts, and has indulged in wilful, slanderous lies. If there is no way to correct this condition peacefully then I propose to use very heroic methods. . . . The acts of the Kansas City Star and/or expressed in the acts of Governor Woodring, are flagrantly lawless, and are a grave threat to the credit and prosperity of the entire district which the Kansas City Star claims to serve. . . . We were told that it was the purpose [of the Kansas bank commissioner, in trying to prohibit sale of Cities Service stock] to throw our companies into the hands of receivers and oust us from the State of Kansas. I think we will be able to prove that the Kansas City Star instigated all of this . . . and that Governor Woodring was a mere tool . . . forced to do the bidding of the Kansas City Star." Also Mr. Doherty charged that Publisher Longan's son-in-law, Lawyer Ben C. Hyde, Jr., nephew of Secretary Hyde, was interested in a gas company being formed which would compete with Cities Service, with the backing of Publisher Longan. This charge was hotly denied.

For those offenses, Oilman Doherfy promised destruction of the Star. He would, however, grant amnesty if the Star's trustees would oust the present management and place in control "honorable, constructive men." He made this suggestion in all seriousness and explained elaborately how the trustees might justify such action.

The Star trustees made no reply. Publisher Longan snorted: "The Star is still interested in the one thing Mr. Doherty doesn't discuss. That is the price of gas and the proper regulation of an unregulated monopoly. Furthermore, I think the public will have a complete understanding of Mr. Doherty's motive . . . [He] has resorted to a method that occasionally has been adopted by big interests fighting for special privileges. He has bought into a distressed newspaper." In that. Publisher Longan spoke accurately, for the Journal-Post's fortunes have been ill.

The elder Dickey ran the morning Journal from 32,647 circulation to 155.463 in the first 18 months of his ownership. In 1928 he combined it with the evening Post, which he had bought from notorious Publishers Bonfils & Tammen of the Denver Post. He operated the properties as a personal enterprise until 1929 when, weary of the drudgery, he formed a trusteeship consisting of himself, his son

William Laurence Dickey (as publisher) and his son-in-law Marion B. Sharp (as business manager). After the elder Dickey's death (in January) the son and son-in-law had difficulty untangling the trusteeship and the estate. They were looking for someone with ready cash to go in with them or to buy outright when along came Tycoon Doherty. Estimated payment for his share: $500,000.

The Journal-Post had been a lukewarm observer of the gas-rate fight. Its editorials were innocuous, deprecatory. But there was sufficient natural feeling against the rival Star to cause a visible sympathy toward Doherty's side of the argument. Hence it was not embarrassingly inconsistent for the Journal-Post to become a Cities Service sounding-board.

Customarily any bedfellowship between the Press and Big Business is viewed with great alarm by highminded journalists and especially by such watchdogs of the press as Editor & Publisher (tradepaper). Even the Federal Trade Commission once interested itself in the discovery that International Paper & Power Co. held substantial notes of 13 U. S. dailies (TIME, May 13, 1929 et seq.). Observers wondered about Oilman Doherty's motive. Had he rushed into the Journal-Post in the heat of wrath, unmindful of the stigma attaching to a "kept" newspaper and all that appears in it? Or had he coolly reckoned that by walking in the front door in broad daylight, he would forestall attacks upon his and the paper's virtue? Although it declined to get excited, the New York Times opined that whatever his reasoning, Mr. Doherty had defeated his own end. Said the Times:

"If the views of a newspaper are known by the public to be dictated in his own interest by one who has bought it, they cease to be of the slightest consequence. Mr. Doherty will quickly find this out if he actually seeks to discover what influence his signed statements will have. . . . He could get them circulated much more widely and at a lower cost in the Kansas City Star itself or in other newspapers-- always provided that they were worth printing and reading."

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