"Grand Old Man"

"I could still sack the lot if I were not satisfied."

Charles Prestwich Scott, octogenarian owner of England's great Liberal daily, the Manchester Guardian, chuckled happily. He had just, last week, announced his retirement as the Guardian's editor, after 57 years.

He could still "sack the lot" because, hale at 82, he was retaining his majority of Guardian stock, and his office of "governing director" (publisher). Nor was the editorship passing far from his touch. To fill his shoes Editor Scott had trained up his son, Edward Taylor Scott, now 45, a quiet, Oxford-educated economist.

Not so many years ago, a tall, shaggy-haired man, none too neatly dressed, was bicycling home through Manchester early one morning. A bobbie stopped him, asked him where he worked. The aged cycler, Editor Scott, told him. The bobbie scowled and said: "Well, I should'a thought they'd let an old man like you get off a bit earlier than this." But to Charles Prestwich Scott work was life. He became the Guardian's editor at 26. He set out to make it one of the world's great newspapers. He succeeded at no expense to his Liberal views or any cause he thought right.

Liberal though he was, in business he was keenly conservative. In Manchester, cotton city, he retained many a political foe as a personal friend by financing cotton interests, giving authentic reports of the industry. The late great William Ewart Gladstone was his close friend, as were Tory Stanley Baldwin, Laborite Ramsay MacDonald and, of course, Liberal Leader Lloyd George. But more proud is he of friendships among other journalists, those from competing and antagonistic newspapers. They call him "The Grand Old Man of English Journalism." Editor Scott still talks of the time Woodrow Wilson traveled to Manchester to pay respects on his last visit to England. Not wealthy, he resides modestly in suburban Manchester, browses there among his books. Each day he bicycles to the office, waving to friends as they pass. On a homebound ride last week, after announcement of his resignation had been made, he carried in his pocket a message from his King, regretting his resignation, congratulating him on an achievement "which must surely be unique in the history of journalism."