Winnie on a Bus

Winnie Winkle the Breadwinner got on a bus one day last month, and for eight days readers of the Chicago Tribune and 140 other newspapers followed Cartoonist Martin Michael Branner's heroine through a series of depressing experiences. She was annoyed by a traveling salesman, bored by a Shakespearean ham, sprawled over by a yokel couple. Many a reader guessed that Cartoonist Branner had gone somewhere on a bus and hadn't liked it much.

Greyhound Lines and one T. R. McCabe, manager of the Cleveland branch of Beaumont & Hohman, advertising agency which has the Greyhound account, thought the implication more sinister. Mr. McCabe brooded for a spell, then last week wrote the Tribune an angry letter demanding "to know immediately if the cartoonist has been approached by representatives of somebody interested in injuring the bus business. . . . Needless to say . . ." said Mr. McCabe with needless indirection, "it may be quite difficult for us to persuade [our clients] that any further advertising should be placed." To Colonel Robert Rutherford ("Free dom of the Press") McCormick's news paper only one reply was possible. The Tribune made it in an editorial that bore the imprint of the Colonel's own choleric style. Snapped the "World's Greatest Newspaper": "We're going to continue to edit the Tribune and Mr. McCabe is going to continue not to edit it. If Mr. McCabe thinks his client isn't getting its money's worth . . . it is Mr. McCabe's duty to cancel the contract. It's all right with us either way, but if we get any more letters from Mr. McCabe like the last one we won't leave the decision to him." Beaumont & Hohman recanted.

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