Exit Evans, Enter Evans

Up on the city room bulletin board of the Nashville Tennessean went a memo last week: "The constructive, liberal policies which have characterized the Nashville Tennessean under the direction of my father will be continued ..." The statement, signed with a bold signature startlingly like that of the late publisher. Silliman Evans, was the work of Silliman Evans Jr. In accord with the "earnest desire" expressed by his father, brisk, self-assured Silliman Evans Jr., 30, will be come the new publisher of one of the South's liveliest and most powerful papers. His brother, Tennessean Reporter (and vice president) Amon Carter Evans. 21, named for the late publisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (TIME, July 4), will become a full-time executive. But much of the day-to-day responsibility for the Tennessean (circ. 112,947) will remain in the hands of Editor-Vice President Coleman Harwell, a meticulous, imaginative newsman who joined the paper 28 years ago as an unpaid cub.

For his new job, Silliman Jr. was carefully trained by his hard-driving father. He broke in as a printer's devil at eight, sold newspapers on the street, learned to use a camera, did some reporting. At 18 he joined the Air Transport Command, became the ATC's youngest wartime pilot, landed the first U.S. transport plane in liberated Paris. After the war Silliman Jr. took over two smaller dailies then owned by the company; Both he and his brother are well aware that they must move fast to live up to their father, described in his early days as a Star-Telegram staffer as "the alltime, all-American diesel engine of Texas reporting."

Truce. The elder Silliman Evans bought a controlling interest in the sick Tennessean in 1937, promptly made a truce with James G. Stahlman's staid evening Banner (circ. 91,878) under which the papers killed competing editions, merged mechanical facilities and ad departments. By thus cutting costs, Evans soon turned his paper into a moneymaker.

In the Tennessean news columns, as distinctively flavored as Tennessee sour mash bourbon, heavy local coverage is liberally laced with national and international news and brightly written features. Evans, who always considered reporting "the most important and best job on a newspaper," was never happier than when his staffers were digging up a political expose or spicy feature, such as the discovery of Nashville Heir Tom Buntin in Texas 22 years after he vanished with his secretary.

Targets. Under its New Dealing publisher (a favorite Evans slogan: "No Republican is fit to hold public office"), the Tennessean hovered protectively over TVA, opposed Eisenhower mainly because Evans suspected the President did not favor further public-power expansion.

Not all Tennessean targets are Republican. Democratic Governor Frank Clement has been elected twice over all-out opposition from the Tennessean, which charges Clement with being a front man for his lawyer father. At the head of the editorial column, seven days a week, it runs a list of "Tennessean Firsts," i.e., top-priority goals, such as bringing industries to Nashville.

Triumph. Evans' proudest "First" was his paper's part in wrecking the late Boss Ed Crump's political machine--. In 1948 two Tennessean candidates were elected after primary victories over Crumpmen: Gordon Browning defeated Governor Tim McCord, and Estes Kefauver was elected to the U.S. Senate. In 1952, with heavy backing from the paper, Representative Albert Gore took the U.S. Senate seat occupied by Senator Kenneth McKellar, a longtime Crump ally. In Evans' will, filed for probate last week, the publisher passed on a lasting reminder to his sons: "Continue to oppose the political machine . . . in Memphis, Tenn. until it and all of its evil works are exterminated."

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