Parlor, Bedroom & Bath

St. Louis, whose big three daily newspapers are closed by a strike, got itself a new paper last week. Its publishers (the Newspaper Guildsmen and three backshop unions of the strike-bound Post-Dispatch, the Star-Times and Globe-Democrat) hoped it would not live long. So did St. Louis readers, who found the skimpy four pages of its first issue an inadequate substitute. To start their St. Louis Daily News, Guildsmen wangled a first allotment of 16 1/4 tons of newsprint from WPB (which will allow any new daily paper that much), persuaded a south St. Louis neighborhood publisher to print it,* and hired an apartment above his plant for their editorial offices. Copyreaders toiled in the living room. Managing Editor Thomas Sherman (who edits the Post-Dispatch Sunday editorial page), his society department and a Transradio news ticker were bunched in the dining room. In an alcove off the hall was the telephone switchboard, and classified-ad takers labored in the kitchen. The sports and financial departments got the bedroom. The bathroom was shared by all.

The Daily, News publishers rolled out 100,000 copies a day, and had no trouble getting advertisers, or selling out their whole first issue in an hour. They solemnly promised their readers to cease publication as soon as the strike ended.

* First day union pressmen picketed their fellow unionists' paper, on the grounds that it was not employing the right kind of pressmen.

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