Backfiring Cartridges

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, for years a newspaperman's reverent synonym for crack reporting and militant crusading, was on the wrong side of an exclusive story of wrongdoing. Its yeasty afternoon competitor, the Star-Times, made the most of it.

A year ago the Star-Times broke a double-streamer expose of faulty ammunition manufacture at the Government's St. Louis Ordnance Plant (world's biggest for small-arms ammunition, operated by United States Cartridge Co.). The Star-Times had nailed down its charges with employes' affidavits, had Byron Price's go-ahead to print it.

While the Star-Times kept the story boiling, the sedate morning Globe-Democrat scoffed from the sidelines, dismissed the charges as "tavern talk." The P-D went farther. It gathered Army interviews and statements, backed the War Department's position: that no more defective ammunition was passing inspection than could reasonably be expected in such a large plant.

Fortnight ago a U.S. grand jury indicted ten U.S. Cartridge Co. employes, charged fraud to all, sabotage to eight.

The Star-Times triumphantly editorialized on Page One: "Strange and decadent journalism that, in order to embarrass or discredit a competitor, lines up on the side of suppression, censorship and whitewash." The Globe-Democrat and the Post-Dispatch had nothing to say.

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