Cool Tribune

Hottest June day in Chicago's history (100.1DEG) occurred last week. Sluicing his throat with iced drinks at his home in Wheaton, Ill., Col. Robert Rutherford McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, gave thought to his employes sweltering in that magnificent Gothic pile on Michigan Avenue, the Tribune Tower. Big-framed Col. McCormick marched to the telephone, called Superior 0100, got Holmes Onderdonk, Tribune building superintendent, on the wire. Said Publisher McCormick to Superintendent Onderdonk, in effect: "I want you to work up a plan for air-conditioning the Tribune Tower. Find out all about it--what systems we might use, how much it would cost, how long it wrould take--everything. Yes, start in right now." That afternoon, as is his custom. Col. McCormick climbed into his old Rolls-Royce roadster and drove into town for a night's work, beginning with an editorial conference, where everyone talked about the weather. Next day the Tribune's biggest news story of the day swung down from an eight-column streamer: 100.1DEG HEAT IS JUNE RECORD But a much more important story stood in the editorial page, in a leader written to Publisher McCormick's order by one of his crack editorial writers, Tiffany Blake. Excerpts: ". . . The Tribune proposes ... to air condition the Tribune Tower. The improvement at this stage is complicated and expensive but it will represent a notable contribution to progress. ... In the perpetual experimentation which has marked the evolution of the great Tribune plant [errors, disappointments, expense] have never checked its progress. . . . The motto is Farragut's: 'Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes.' " One of the torpedoes to be damned by Col. McCormick is an estimated cost which may reach $500,000.

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