Fox & Hounds

Boston's sickly, 125-year-old Post made news each morning last week simply by coming out. Though the Post itself printed not a line about its ordeal, no well-informed Bostonian would have been surprised to see the paper collapse or pass suddenly into new hands. The daily was in an almost comic mess -creditors swarming, funds attached, payroll delayed, newsprint delivered only for hard cash, and negotiations begun for a distress sale.

Eccentric, self-made Financial Juggler John Fox, 49, snapped up the paper four years ago, when it seemed that its fortunes could go no lower. An enthusiastic cub as publisher and columnist ("Washington Waters"), Fox shook up the paper into a livelier daily. But by last week. Post circulation had dropped from 306,000 to 267,000 and advertising had tumbled with it. Of the "bargain price" of a reported $3,300,000 that Fox paid for the paper, he still owes about $1,000,000.

That big debt was rumored to be putting the pressure on Fox to sell out. But an avalanche of smaller debts was making it hard for him to hold the paper long enough to sell it. Six weeks ago, the City of Boston threatened to seize the Post's real estate if Fox did not pay up back taxes by mid-August. A fortnight ago, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service tied up the paper's bank account with a claim for $221,116 in unpaid withholding taxes from employees. Other creditors slapped other liens on the paper and its publisher, until he had to ask employees to wait several days extra for their weekly pay. Meantime, a Boston attorney named John S. Bottomly said that he was negotiating with Fox to buy the paper, insisted that he was acting for himself. Fox announced that the paper was "not for sale."

Last week, after barely meeting the extended payroll deadline with personal certified checks, Fox got a demand from the unions representing his 850 employees: either sell out and pay up the bills, or get the paper on a businesslike basis. Fox went into a four-hour huddle with employees and emerged with a statement that the union leaders all proclaimed "satisfactory." At week's end, Fox was still scrambling to hang on to the Post.

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