Exit Verne Marshall

Ordinarily the annual election of officers on the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette is strictly local news, if that, but this year it was different. Elections last week involved a conspicuous character. He was Verne Marshall, recent Gazette editor and fireball isolationist head of the No Foreign War Committee. The Gazette Co. supplanted him as secretary, which put him clean out of the newspaper.

Editor Marshall dropped out of sight with astonishing completeness when the No Foreign War Committee closed up shop two months ago. So isolated last week was Isolationist Marshall that even his own family made a mystery of his whereabouts. Persistent rumor said he was in a sanatorium somewhere in Wisconsin. But his family--including his five daughters--refused to confirm the rumor. Family friends were more specific. Said one of them: "You know he went off the deep end for a while. But Verne's all right now, and he's sorry for all the things he's done." Still rumorous were the reasons Verne Marshall never returned to edit after his expensive isolationist spree. (He had put up about $55,000 for full-page ads for the No Foreign War Committee.) More certain was the strong opposition to Marshall's steaming isolationist propaganda on page one of the Gazette, particularly on the part of Cedar Rapids' large Czech population.

The post-Verne Marshall Gazette is doing well. With circulation at an all-time high (44,701), it now prints news on the front page, carries on more moderately and grammatically under capable former Associate Editor Harry E. Boyd and Verne's younger, smaller, quieter brother Clare. Said Editor-in-Chief Clare Marshall to his staff: "We're still a strong crusading paper. But when you have a grievance, keep it out of the news story."

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