Nobody Wins

Out of the composing room of the strikebound Philadelphia Record stalked a squad of grim-faced A.F.L. printers. They marched across the street to Rosen's saloon, a hangout for Record workers. In the bar, they walked up to a group of strikers, tossed them the proofs of a statement that was running on Page One. Said one bitter printer: "Well, you guys have finally managed to close the paper."

The thunderstruck strikers, members of the C.I.O. Newspaper Guild, hurried outside. Sure enough, their picket line had melted away. There was no longer a Philadelphia Record for them to picket. Tired of a fight that nobody seemed able to win, impulsive, New Dealing Publisher J. David Stern had shut up shop and sold out. The buyer: conservative Robert McLean, head of the rich Evening Bulletin and president of the Associated Press.

The Guild had singled out Dave Stern for a knockdown, drag-out fight. As a self-proclaimed friend of labor, Stern might more easily be embarrassed into signing than Philadelphia's two other press lords. The Guild had made identical demands (including $100 a week for experienced newsmen) on Walter Annenberg, head of the Inquirer. Annenberg, like Stern, had turned them down--but the Guild let Annenberg alone, and struck Stern's Record, and his Camden Courier and Post, across the Delaware River.

Fair Warning. Much to their surprise, Stern fought back hard. A handful of executives managed to get out the paper without the 580 strikers. The Stern papers never missed an edition. Stern sent the Guild a warning: "I want to be fair," he wrote, "but I will not be coerced. If this business cannot be operated on a reasonable basis of give-&-take, then it is not worth operating." The Guild backed down from $100 to $88 in its demands, and Stern upped his offer from $68 to $75. That was as close as they got.

Last week, after 87 days of being picketed, Stern wrote a front-page epitaph for the Record: "Guild policy has acted to restrict the rights of management to a degree where it has become too great a burden to operate a completely independent press. . . . Philadelphia's liberal newspaper has been chosen by this one union as a target for its unusual theories."

Lost Voice. In going out of business, Dave Stern left the third largest city in the U.S., which once had 16 newspapers, with only two major dailies--and only one editorial viewpoint. With the crusading Record, conservative Publisher McLean got powerful (50,000 watts) Radio Station WCAU and the Camden papers. McLean intended to keep the radio station going and incorporate the Record's Sunday features (among them the American Weekly) in a Sunday edition for the Bulletin. The profitable Camden papers and the weekday Record, which he did not want, he could sell at his leisure. Meanwhile his Bulletin could not absorb many of Stern's 1,675 employees.

Said Dave Stern as he wound up his affairs: "I'm just awful tired and confused. The people I thought were for me, were against me. I'm 60 and if I ever do another stroke of work in my life I'm a sucker. I'm going to lie on a beach and not even think, and just be a mollusk." It was hard for Philadelphia to believe that Stern could ever take it easy. Some guessed that he and his son, David III, publisher of the Camden papers, would take their money (around $10 million, less $5 1/2 million in debts) and buy something else with it.

At week's end the still-bewildered Guild announced that its strike was still on, against whoever tried to resume publication. Yet national Guild leaders knew that they had suffered a major blow. They had pulled the trigger on Dave Stern, and the gun had backfired.

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