Minesota Monopoly

Minnesota Monopoly

St. Paul, Minn, last week learned that it is to become a one-newspaper town. The Ridder Brothers. Manhattan chain publishers, got control of the only daily there that they did not already own. They operate the evening Dispatch and the morning Pioneer Press. What they bought was the slipping, 33-year-old evening News, for a reputed price of $750,000.

Up to late last week News stockholders had not officially approved the deal and News employes were fighting it desperately. They circulated a handbill headlined "Only One Newspaper in St. Paul?'' and protested to St. Paul NRA officials that if the News were killed, 1,000 em- ployes would be thrown out of work. The City Council adopted a resolution severely criticizing the merger. Governor Floyd B. Olson wrote a letter to the NRA in Washington. Retorted the Brothers Ridder in their Dispatch: "The Federal Government itself has recently found it necessary to let out many thousands of employes. Many marginal concerns have been going out of business since the start of the Depression. The net result will be fewer business institutions but stronger and better ones."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.