America Firster

The huge New York Daily News last week asked itself why it was so popular--and answered itself to its own obvious satisfaction.

The reason the tabloid News has the biggest U.S. circulation (2,004,000 daily and 3,700,000 on Sunday), according to Publisher Joseph Medill Patterson's editorial, is that people approve of its "America First" line. Joe Patterson drew the same conclusion about his cousin Bertie McCormick's mighty Chicago Tribune and his sister Eleanor ("Cissie") Patterson's Washington Times-Herald. He noted that they were tops in circulation in their cities, too. Said the News:

"The favorite explanation for the News' big circulation used to be that it is a tabloid paper. New York now has five tabloids, though--three of them radical, the other two not so radical. The two not so radical tabloids have far bigger circulations than any of the three radical ones. . . .

"Another old favorite explanation was that the News was loaded up with 'cheesecake'; that is, leg art, and hot sexy stuff that titillated the morons. We don't overplay sex, and haven't for years. . . .

"These three [Patterson-McCormick-Patterson] newspapers' editorial policies on domestic affairs have differed from time to time [the News was once pro-New Deal]. Their policies on foreign affairs have not differed importantly. Those policies have been and are slanted toward what we believe to be the best interests of the American people--America first, to use a phrase which various global thinkers have done their best to bring into disrepute.

"At this time, these three newspapers are agreed on the proposition that a fourth term for President Roosevelt would mean the end of the Republic. . . . "The answer to these papers' circulation . . . must be that a lot of people like these papers' editorial policies. . . . Anyway, that's our story, and we're going to stick to it until and unless it's disproved."

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