In the Record

A traveling salesman in Philadelphia, thumbing a chance copy of the Morning Record one day last week might have noticed the life-size face of a handsome lady staring at him from a full-page advertisement. Possibly he gave it a second glance and read:

"The New York and all Philadelphia morning papers come before coffee with our breakfast. Among them is the Philadelphia Record, which I read with interest. I like its clear covering of the news and I always note its point of view.

(Signed) Alma E. Lorimer

Mrs. George H. Lorimer.''

To the traveler it was just another testimonial advertisement. But to any Philadelphian who knew his city, it was a sensation.

For more than three years Philadelphia has been the scene of a continuous journalistic brawl. On one side are the lofty

Public Ledgers and Inquirer owned by old Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis. Against them is the Record, lusty bratling of Publisher Julius David Stern. They fight editorially--liberal, hard-hitting Record v. high Tory Public Ledgers and Inquirer. They fight for circulation--with the Record (149,000) now well ahead of the morning Public Ledger (105,000) and creeping up on the Inquirer, which still has an ample lead (232,000). Fiercest of all is the fight for advertising, in which the Record has beaten the Public Ledger, is worrying the Inquirer.

Cyrus Curtis did not go into the newspaper business until he had amassed a vast fortune from the Saturday Evening Post and other magazines. The advertising solicitors of his newspapers have loudly argued that the Record is "vulgar . . . with no quality, no class circulation." But the ultimate in Philadelphia quality and "class" is Mrs. George Horace Lorimer, wife of the chief executive of Mr. Curtis' magazines. Unsuspecting, she had given her picture and endorsement to Judith Jennings, the Record's vivacious society editor.

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