Extra for the Boss

Bertie McCormick no longer had to send someone to the door to pick up the morning's copy of his Chicago Tribune, "World's Greatest Newspaper." It came right into the living room of his Cantigny Farm in suburban Wheaton, Ill., through a gadget that brought him the Tribune in facsimile (TIME, April 29). Trib executives had instructions to radio the condensed version there three times a week before the Colonel sat down to breakfast (9 a.m.).

News stories had to be specially reset, and cartoons redrawn with simpler lines, for the Colonel's one-copy edition. Just how much all this cost, no Tribman would say. It took 28 minutes to broadcast the first issue (four pages, about the size of a lady's handkerchief) 29 miles to the Colonel's home. The Colonel liked it so well that he ordered a new facsimile machine which will reproduce a page about three times as fast.

Said the Colonel: "Facsimile may prove too costly. The recorders cost more than $400 now and the paper used for the printing is expensive. We don't know who will use it. Perhaps frate* ships, with their small crews, would find it useful. The men could pass the copy around. It may be that it would be of service in fishing camps [and to] farmers.

"I do not know what facsimile is any more than I knew what radio was 20 years ago, but we are going to find out. . . . We can't resist these advances."

* Simplified spelling is also one of the Colonel's hobbies.

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