Moving Day for Columnists

Dorothy Thompson walks the plank next Monday for deserting the Republican ship to endorse Roosevelt instead of Willkie last fall.

Signed for a two-year contract with the Bell Syndicate, Pundit Thompson transfers her column to the arch-New Deal New York Post, after five years with the arch-Republican New York Herald Tribune.* Said Columnist Thompson, of her showdown with the Herald Tribune: "We just agreed to disagree. I like the Herald Tribune and we've had pleasant relations. I think everyone understands there was a difference of opinion. ... It goes back to the campaign, so what's the use of talking about it now?" Herald Tribune men doubted that any syndicate could better its record of selling Thompson to 196 papers, some 7,500,000 readers.

But Bell Syndicate reported Thompson columns already sold to 200 papers, with a total circulation of 9,000,000.

Week before the Thompson shift General Hugh S(amuel) Johnson walked out on Scripps-Howard's United Feature Syndicate (which discovered his unsuspected literary talents six years ago), signed up (at a reputed $50,000 a year) with Hearst's King Features. Explained the General, whose string has fallen more than 10% since election and his strong isolationist stand: "Some Scripps-Howard papers didn't seem to be very-sympathetic and I didn't want them to have to carry the column when they didn't want to." One such paper was the Tyler (Tex.) morning Telegraph, which last month dropped its Johnson column, explained why in an editorial and cartoon (see cut, p. 38). Said the Telegraph: "The General . . . has allowed his personal animosity for President Roosevelt to cause him to oppose every defense measure undertaken by the present administration without regard to fact or expert opinion."

But the General, whose column will continue to appear in a number of Scripps-Howard papers (including the Washington News and New York World-Telegram), insisted that he and Roy Howard had worked everything out "very amicably."

*Major Thompson switches outside Manhattan were: in Washington, from the Post to the Star; in Philadelphia, from the Inquirer to the Bulletin; a reappearance in Chicago in Frank Knox's News.

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