"Buyers'Strike"

Of ebullient young Publisher Roy Wilson Howard, whom he saw at Henry Latham Doherty's 62nd birthday party last week (see p. 42), experienced old Arthur Brisbane wrote in his Hearstpaper colyum: "He is the man, daring all for science, who grafted the dead New York Evening World onto the half-dead New York Evening Telegram and said to the world 'Now watch it run.' It doesn't exactly run, but when you consider everything, Mr. Howard has done well. All his friends hope that circulation will improve, and that New York merchants will change their minds and decide to advertise in it. Courage should be rewarded."

Editor Brisbane and all other Manhattan news executives had reason to wish the World-Telegram well in its fight with local merchants. Twelve large department stores had withdrawn their advertising from the World-Telegram, presumably in protest against a rate increase. Department store lineage--about one-third of a paper's total lineage--dropped 80% in a week. John Wanamaker, R. H. Macy & Co. and James A. Hearn & Son alone remained.

Months ago the World-Telegram announced a 3-c- per line increase over old World rates, to align the paper's revenue with its merger-increased circulation. Other publishers feared that victory over the World-Telegram would spur the retailers to try to beat down other newspapers' rates.

Ever watchful Editor & Publisher spoke last month of a secret conference of store managers which preceded the "buyers' strike," hinted darkly at "restraint of trade."

Chicago Chit-Chat

Chicagoans who read society news are now accustomed to reading daily chit-chat which, besides routine news of socialite comings & goings, serves up harmless intimacies. First to adopt the idea was the Daily News when alert Col. William Franklin ("Frank") Knox took charge last summer (TIME, Aug. 24). Soon the Tribune found it necessary to brighten up its social page. Last week, accompanied by fanfare which included a full-page advertisement and a half-page announcement in the society columns, Hearst's evening American appeared with the chattiest column of them all. Excerpts:

"The whole world, practically, seems to be giving cocktail parties. . . . Mrs. Henry Field had on a fantastic and most becoming hat ... like a parasol with a gardenia under the brim. . . . Mother (Mrs. A. H. Granger) is sailing the end of May to spend the summer in and around Vienna. . . . I've been a little tired this week and the person who is to blame is Miss Margalo Gilmore, owing to the fact that she has so many friends here. We played the piano and sang and in no time it was much too late. . . . Like all my parties, everyone just sat on the floor and talked--the reason being that there never seem to be enough chairs to go around. . . .

" What interested American readers most, however, was not the column but the fact that its conductor was a young woman who knew whereof she wrote--Mrs. William Mitchell Blair, 31, smart & sociable, whose husband is related to the formidable Chicago clans of McCormicks, Mitchells and Blairs.--

Martha Granger Blair gave up a job in a dress shop to go with the American. She has a year's contract at a salary "much bigger" than before, will write "authentic, interesting, amusing" stories. Whatever Mrs. Blair will say, she will put down either in longhand or by dictation : she does not know how to typewrite, though for purposes of publicity the American pictured her "writing her first newspaper story" at a typewriter. Fond of tennis, swimming, riding, mother of two, she dislikes golf and bridge, prefers talking to backgammon. Last winter, long before she knew she was one day to work for William Randolph Hearst, she ap peared in a charity tableau representing Cinemactress Marion Davies.

The hiring of Mrs. Blair was by no means the only important change in the American last fortnight. Managing Editor James P. Bicket was replaced by quiet, gentle-mannered Royal Daniel Jr., one time managing editor of Hearst's Boston Advertiser and lately of the Washington Herald. Reason: small, smart William A. Curley had been in town. Now managing editor of the profitable New York Eve ning Journal, which he has built up as he built up the Chicago American and Los Angeles Herald, "Bill" Curley is Publisher Hearst's chief "trouble-shooter." From his Manhattan headquarters he dashes about to Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, Mil waukee, doctoring Hearst evening papers, advising changes, sometimes hiring and (a task which he detests) firing.

Reporter's Return

Fairly typical of first-rate newshawks is short, swart, banjo-eyed Norman Klein, 35. As a cub reporter he covered churches for the Sioux City Tribune, migrated by jumps to the Chicago Daily News. For two years he served that paper as War correspondent on the British front. Next he worked for the Chicago Tribune as "the world's worst copyreader." Manhattan was his goal. He reached it in 1925, frittered away his money on Broadway before looking for a job. When the tabloid Mirror notified him he was hired, he stole an empty milk bottle to raise subway fare to go to work. From the vulgar Mirror Reporter Klein went to the patrician Evening Post where in the next four years his by-line became so familiar that in 1929 the American Press (trade-paper) thought it worthwhile to ask him why he was quitting to take a job in an advertising agency (TiME, Nov. 11, 1929). Excerpts from his reply:

"Newspapering is a young man's game. . . And a newspaperman is young only as long as he can successfully kid himself. I kidded myself because I kept on thinking smugly that I was Somebody. ... A newspaperman's training--his 'deadline' habit of thinking on his feet--will get him further in a money way in advertising. . . . I'm out for the jack from now on."

Last week Adman Klein returned to his old desk at the Evening Post. He had lasted a year with his first agency, was hired away by another which discharged him after three months. Said Reporter Klein last week:

"I went into it for the money and it wasn't worth it. It was like riding a merry-go-round in an insane asylum. For one thing the 'deadline' habit gets you no- where. If you hand a piece of copy in the same day it is assigned, the boss assumes it's no good because you didn't take long enough. Hold it for a couple of days and it will be accepted right away. ... A city editor can make up his mind instantly on an important decision and he's right 90% of the time. An advertising man takes a day, a week or a month. . . . Most agencies thrive on two or three fat bread-& butter accounts, and they're neurotic with fear of those clients. Consequently, advertising men eat too fast, smoke & drink too much, suffer from telephone madness, and Bermuda is their sanitarium. The few hep guys in the business are bitterly unhappy and all have some outlet --painting, amateur photography, fiction writing. ... I wrote hundreds of pieces of copy, delivered sausages to 'test consumer preferences,' tested a radio set's reception in Mammoth Cave, ghosted a numerologist's answers to letters of radio listeners, conducted blindfold tests of cigarets, wrote speeches for a corporation president, sold mayonnaise to Pennsylvania steelworkers, sat in endless solemn conferences. And now I hope to regain my sanity."

After quitting advertising Reporter Klein retired with his wife and infant son to Westport, Conn., wrote a mystery novel (No! No! The Woman!} because someone told him he ought to. Fortnight ago the Post asked him to return to work. Another ace reporter, Milton MacKaye, had left to write a novel in Connecticut.

--William Mitchell Blair is not to be confused with his cousin William McCormick Blair, Chicago partner of Lee.Higginson & Co.

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