Transplant from Shanghai

Fortnight ago the Shanghai Evening Post & Mercury set a new record. During the Civil War the Memphis Commercial Appeal scurried to Grenada, Miss., Atlanta and Columbus, Ga. with Union armies breathing down its inky neck. During 1936 floods Pittsburgh papers left their soaked plants, took up stance in neighboring cities. But the Post & Mercury last week appeared in Manhattan, 10,000 miles away from home base.

Cornelius V. Starr, a 50-year-old, California-born businessman took a 'round-the-world tour in 1919. His first and last stop was Shanghai. He opened a small insurance business there, by 1941 had offices on several continents.

In 1926 Cornelius Starr bought the English-language Shanghai Evening News for $2,500. Starr changed the paper's name to the Post, later bought out the British-owned Mercury for $10,000, hired as editor 44-year-old, Minnesota-born Randall Gould, ex-Far East correspondent for TIME, United Press, Christian Science Monitor.

In ten lean years losses totaled about $250,000. Both the Chinese and Japanese Governments frequently tried to win the Post's support by subsidy; Starr and Gould always retorted: "We'll quit publishing first!" Wang Ching-wei, head of the Japanese-supported regime in Nanking, once futilely ordered Starr and Gould deported. Through it all, by sticking rigidly to their pledge to "follow the American newspaper tradition of free speech," Starr and Gould finally lifted their fledgling publication into the black. By Dec. 7, 1941, they were averaging $35,000 a year net profit.

Both Starr and Gould were in the U.S. on Pearl Harbor morning. The Post's Managing Editor Frederick B. Opper was caught in Shanghai.

The weekly New York edition of the Post was decided on to repudiate the Jap propaganda sheet now published in Shanghai under the Post's respected masthead. Starr's far-flung friends send in many a news tip about Far East affairs. So far the New York edition, tabloid size, has about 8,500 readers.

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