Just Just

Lake County, Ill. includes such swank Chicago suburbs as Highland Park, Lake Forest, Deerfield, Barrington. Its biggest city (pop. 33,499) is Waukegan, chiefly famed as Jack Benny's home town.

Until six months ago Lake County had just one staid, old newspaper, the Waukegan News-Sun. Publisher Frank H. Just, bald, stern and 71, has been a newspaper man for 43 years, and a lifelong foe of gambling.

Two years ago (according to a story Frank Just told Federal investigators) a lawyer with a little mustache called at the News-Sun office and introduced him self as William Goldstein. Everybody in Chicago knows that Lawyer Goldstein frequently appears as legal counsel for alleged handbook operators in their brief and painless brushes with the law. He is also an attorney for Billy Skidmore, Chicago's gambling overlord.

Frank Just's story is that Lawyer Goldstein told him Billy Skidmore had bought the Bon Air Country Club, just inside the border of Lake County, and meant to turn it into an elegant casino for suburban socialites. If the News-Sun would lay off Skidmore's casino, Publisher Just would find $100,000 on his desk. When Frank Just refused (he says), Lawyer Goldstein threatened to start a rival paper.

Publisher Just saw no more of Lawyer Goldstein for a while, and presently he forgot about the visit. Last summer, with his sons, he went off cruising for two months on the Great Lakes. Meanwhile, in Waukegan, a sign went up in a vacant furniture store announcing a new Waukegan daily.

One August day Publisher Just got word in Canada that the Bon Air Country Club was open for business and going full blast. Frank Just's cruiser made the spray fly across Lake Michigan, speeding home to Waukegan. Back at his desk, he sent the News-Sun's star feature writer, a girl reporter named Gladys Priddy, to see what was going on at the Country Club.

A uniformed doorman ushered Gladys and her escort in at the Club's canopied entrance. In the dining room a name band was playing, an elaborate floor show was just beginning. Off the lobby was a gaming room with tables for roulette, craps, black jack, high-low. Reporter Priddy recognized some of Lake County's plumpest dowagers, smartest debutantes.

Next day Publisher Just called in Lake County's sheriff, showed him what Gladys Priddy had written. That night the sheriff raided the Club, closed the game room, proceeded on a whirlwind tour of Lake County, seizing slot machines and pinball games for good measure.

Two weeks later the new Waukegan Post appeared on the street. Only name on the masthead was Frank T. Fowler, listed as director. A onetime Chicago alderman, onetime manager of Waukegan's chamber of commerce, publisher of another short-lived Waukegan journal, 72-year-old Frank Fowler had been living in Tarpon Springs, Fla. until he came back to take charge of the Post.

Once more the News-Sun's Just went into action, sent photographers to stalk the Post plant. They got what they were after: a shot of Lawyer Goldstein walking out with a batch of papers. Next morning Frank Just printed his story of Lawyer Goldstein's visit to the News-Sun office in 1938. Chicago papers picked it up. One month later William Goldstein announced himself as Publisher of the Post.

While all this was going on in Waukegan, Federal investigators had been making things hot for Billy Skidmore and his Chicago gambling syndicate. Last summer Skidmore was indicted, like Al Capone, for income-tax evasion. In August Publisher Just went before a grand jury with his story. In December a former circulation manager of the Post turned over to the grand jury a list of 391 Chicago hoodlums, bookmakers, politicians who, he said, were subscribers to the Post.

Presumably, Chicago gamblers would have no reason to be curious about local news items in Waukegan. But last winter Publisher Moe Annenberg's Nationwide News Service was forced to cut off its racing information to bookmakers and betters (TIME, Nov. 13). A Waukegan newspaper with press wire service could act as an outpost to give Chicago bookies (by telephone) this vital information.

The Post has Hearst's International News Service. It prints no race results, competes with the News-Sun for moral support among Waukegan townsfolk by publishing an occasional editorial that ends: "ABOLISH THE RACE TRACKS!" And it gives plenty of space to churches, clubs, society, staff pictures of local bigwigs.

Last week Lawyer Goldstein was under a Federal indictment for perjury, because he testified that none of Billy Skidmore's halls was used for gambling, although he had managed the properties and collected rentals. But Publisher Goldstein denied Frank Just's story, denied any gamblers were interested in his paper, insisted that he had started the Post because with his two sons (graduates of a school of journalism) he had always been interested in the newspaper business.

Meanwhile Waukegan businessmen shunned the Post, gave their advertising as usual to Frank Just. But the Post continued publishing.

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