"Tactics of Dictatorship"

Lettered across the front window of the Flora, Ill. Sentinel (circ. 2,500) is a proud slogan: "A free press, a free nation." Like many another country editor, stocky, aggressive Charles Allen Crowder writes almost all the stories in his twice-weekly Sentinel himself; his wife Dorothy and their 15-year-old son Charles Jr. (whose column is called "Crowder's Chowder") do the rest. In reporting the news of Flora (pop. 6,000) and Republican Clay County, Republican Editor Crowder says he sometimes "plays up what the business interests want played down."

Last January, 48-year-old Editor Crowder, a lawyer who switched to journalism four years ago, was handed the hottest issue of his newspaper career. Employees of the Flora Municipal Light & Water System joined the A.F.L. Electrical Workers, and asked the City Council to recognize them as a union for collective bargaining. When the council refused, 19 employees went on strike. The Sentinel declared itself editorially neutral in the dispute, promised to report "both sides" in its news columns--and did.

Lay Off. To some Clay County businessmen, reporting both sides made the Sentinel prolabor. Friends of Crowder began stopping him on the street and hinting at reprisals (e.g., advertising cancellations) if he did not "lay off"; his telephone rang with anonymous threats. Advertisers organized a boycott of the Sentinel; 100 subscriptions were canceled. Only then did the Sentinel take a firm stand in the strike. Wrote angry Editor Crowder: "The City Council is bucking the line of human progress at the expense of all the people . . ." To offset the canceled subscriptions, 300 C.I.O. and A.F.L. union members marched in a body to the Sentinel office and signed up.

That was too much for six Flora businessmen. They organized a syndicate to buy up the mortgage on Crowder's newspaper plant. When Crowder went to the bank with $800 in back payments, he learned that his mortgage had been sold for $8,500 to "my worst enemies." The syndicate, headed by Oilman E. D. Given, promptly slapped a judgment on Crowder's property, and the sheriff tried to seize the press.

No Strings. Refusing to surrender it, Crowder raised a loud editorial cry of "suppression." Agreed the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "The tactics of dictatorship . . . What is being done to the Sentinel will be resented wherever there is a decent respect for freedom of speech and press." Flora union members and other citizens chipped in $3,000 to a "Save the Sentinel" fund. But Crowder needed $5,000 more.

Last week he got it--with good measure. From Washington, President Dan W. Tracy of the Electrical Workers wired Crowder an offer of $8,000. Said Tracy: "There are no strings attached to this offer . . . Truthful and undistorted coverage . . . is all that we ask and [all] we are entitled to." Replied Editor Crowder, accepting the loan: "Your [offer is] a declaration of emancipation of all the rural press . . ."

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