In Cincinnati

Good Cincinnati Republicans picked up their copies of the venerable Commercial Tribune one day last week to read in a front-page box that the paper would "cease and terminate with this issue." It had been bought by the Democratic Enquirer, its dominant and sole rival in the morning field. To the casual reader of the announcement the "purchase" might have been effected the day before. Actually it took place in 1911 when a representative of the late famed John R. McLean, founder and publisher of the Enquirer, paid $420,000 at private auction for the limping Commercial Tribune. For two decades the McLean interests operated both papers, strategically covering the adherents of both major parties. Also there was another, probably stronger motive for keeping the Commercial Tribune alive: its presence served to protect the thriving Enquirer against invasion of the morning field by outside competition-- possibly Hearst. Year ago shrewd General Manager William F. Wiley contracted for United Press and Universal Service to augment the Enquirer's Associated Press franchise. Then, according to report, Publisher Edward Beale ("Ned") McLean, son of the founder (and publisher also of the Washington Post), won an agreement from Hearst to stay out of Cincinnati for at least three years. Thus, when the Commercial Tribune lost even its political prestige at last month's election, Publisher McLean could cut it loose. The morning field was well "in the bag." * The Commercial Tribune was sometimes called "second oldest newspaper in the Northwest Territory," the Chillicothe Scioto Gazette, the oldest. Actually both are deviously descended from the Centenil [sic] of the Northwest Territory, founded 1793. Most famed editor of the Commercial Tribune was Murat Halstead, holding office in the 1860's to 1880's when the paper was the Commercial and the Commercial Gazette. He it was who so embittered the South by his editorials during the Reconstruction days, who gave William Howard Taft a job as cub reporter covering courts, who for 50 years was a power in the G.O.P., a sponsor and later an enemy of the celebrated Cox Gang, later a supporter of Mark Hanna. Most distinctive outward feature of the Enquirer is its curious, archaic style of headlines, suggestive of British and reminiscent of early U. S. journals. Example: BE MERCIFUL. Owen Young Urges

In Discussing European War Debt Problems.

But Don't Let Situation Revert to Muddle

That Existed Prior to Adjusting of Term.

Financier Advises in New York Address.

* Badly out of the bag, however, were 186 Commercial Tribune employes, thrown out of work virtually without warning. The boxed announcement of the sale appeared in their paper directly under a page-wide headline reading $150,000,000 ASKED FOR AID OF UNEMPLOYED.

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