The Old Lady of Washington

As the oldest, richest paper in Washington, the Evening Star (circ. 226,000) is the capital's only real home-town daily. While other Washington dailies vie for national prestige and influence, the Star acts as Washington's devoted housewife, fighting as hard for good garbage disposal in the District as for good government in the nation. Like any efficient housekeeper, the Star seldom wastes anything, every day prints almost all the 200,000 words that file into its city room over the A.P. wire. Although its coverage of the government, Capitol Hill and the world is more complete than any paper in the city, its neat, restrained columns (where liquor ads are banned) are jammed with reports on civic meetings, mothers' clubs, high-school graduations and local bird life. Says Editor Benjamin M. McKelway: The last time the paper was "really wrought up" was when it fought the "free silver of the Bryan campaign."

Last week, at a banquet at Washington's Hotel Statler given for her 1,440 employees, the Old Lady celebrated her looth birthday. With a propriety befitting her age and standing, the paper's staff sat around her table in strict order of service seniority. Next to President

Samuel Kauffmann, 54, was the head janitor on the sixth floor, who came to the paper when Kauffmann did, 31 years ago. Alongside Editor McKelway, 57, sat a Negro press helper who got a job on the Star in 1920, when McKelway came to work for the paper. For the occasion, the Old Lady showed she could still kick up her skirts. To the "Live a little" tune, the Star promotion manager good-naturedly needled the staff: "You've got to lie a little, boast a little/You've gotto make like the [Washington] Post a little . . ."

From Stub to Monument. Ever since the Star was started in 1852, it has kept its eye on Washington. The paper, said its first editorial, "will preserve a strict neutrality, and whilst maintaining a fearless spirit of independence, will be devoted in an especial manner to the local interests of the beautiful city which bears the honored name of Washington." Since the Washington Monument was just a stub then, it set out to raise money to complete it. The Star campaigned for street numbers on houses, modern jails, a closed sewage system and through railroads, and even bested the Pennsylvania Railroad in a fight to eliminate grade crossings. Once, in a burst of effervescence, after the Star fought to rout a "swindling" local government, the paper chanted in banner headlines : VICTORY! VICTORY!! VICTORY!!!

EMERY ELECTED BY 3800 MAJORITY

CARRIES EVERY WARD IN CITY!--BY-BYE COOK!!

--FAREWELL BOWEN -- A LONG ETERNAL

ADIEU TO THE WHOLE SWINDLING RING --

HAIL KERLUMBY ! ! -- YAH ! YAH ! ! YAH ! ! !

The Star is not only edited for the whole family, but has been published by the same families for 85 years. Fifteen years after its birth it was bought by one of its reporters, Crosby S. Noyes, together with New York World Washington Correspondent George W. Adams, Ohio Publisher Samuel Kauffmann, and two others who were soon bought out. The Noyes-Adams-Kauffmann families still own the paper. By inheritance, the Star's stock has already passed to the fourth and fifth generations.

All in the Family. Over the years, the Star family reached so far into Washington life that when Scripps-Howard started the Washington News, it looked for a bank where Star relatives did not sit on the board of directors. The News settled on a small bank that had no Star relatives on the board, opened its modest account there so the Star wouldn't know the finances of its new competitor.

There are still twelve family staffers on the paper, but Sunday Editor Newbold Noyes Jr. is quick to point out that no one holds a job unless he does well. "There are too many of the family banking on this paper for our income," says he. "It's got to make money." Office wags joke that in one more generation, or perhaps two, the Star will need no help at all from outside families. The top "outsider" on the Star is Editor McKelway. He is also the only non-family stockholder. McKelway, brother of The New Yorker's St. Clair McKelway, was given one share so that he could sit on the paper's board.

In advertising, the Star has long been one of the leading papers in the U.S., outranks the New York Times in ad linage, and this year stands fourth-among the nation's papers. Its circulation in Washington runs second to McCormick's Times-Herald, but the Times-Herald has been slipping while the Star has been gaining. Its staff is as secure as the paper. Starmen like to boast that no one is ever fired or laid off "except for very grave reasons." The paper's front-page trademark feature for years was the fussy, inoffensive cartooning of the late Pulitzer-Prizewinning Clifford K. Berryman, and now it is the work of his son Jim. President Kauffmann sees no reason to change the Old Lady's successful ways. Says he: "Our dedication is to the voteless citizens of this city."

-After the Milwaukee Journal, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times.

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