The Press: Shining Star

One day last week an old friend dropped into the office of handsome, courtly Samuel Hay Kauffmann to congratulate him. At 50, Kauffmann had been elected president of the Washington Evening Star—the capital’s oldest, richest and most conservative newspaper. Said the friend: “I remember the first time I saw you. You were sitting on the tailgate of a Star truck.” Sam Kauffmann, grandson and namesake of the Star’s first president, had started at the bottom 28 years ago to learn the business side of the business.

For 81 years, the Star has been the two-family business of the Kauffmann and Noyes families. The recent deaths of 85-year-old Frank Noyes (TIME, Dec. 13) and 75-year-old Fleming Newbold, his brother-in-law, less than two months apart, marked the end of the old regime on the Star. Last week Kauffmann, four other new officers and two new directors* ushered in the new regime. Six of the seven were named Kauffmann or Noyes; all were descendants of the first Samuel Hay Kauffmann or the first Crosby Stuart Noyes, who took over the Star in 1867.

The newcomers, who called themselves “the new infusion,” had more in common than names. They were all wealthy, civic-minded, business-wise; five of the seven were Princeton-educated (the other two had gone to Yale). All had started as printers’ devils, clerks or cubs.

Their arrival on top would mean few changes down below. They had already been made. Said Kauffmann: “During the war, I got an uncomfortable feeling that there was nobody really underneath me until you got to the copy boys.” After the war, Heir-Apparent Kauffmann started replacing the oldtimers with younger, more vigorous department heads. By last week, they were a smooth team. With a clinking cash register (last year the Star was seventh in the U.S. in ad volume), President Kauffmann had no intention of interfering with able Editor Benjamin M. McKelway, 53, who was re-elected last week. And Ben McKelway had no intention of changing the Star’s editorial formula of printing local news in great detail and dodging controversial civic issues. Last week he cautiously introduced a larger body type (but the same old Ionic) for better readability.

* Rudolph Max Kauffmann, vice president; Newbold Noyes Jr., secretary; Crosby Noyes Boyd, treasurer; Rudolph Kauffmann II, assistant secretary-treasurer; Godfrey W. Kauffmann and Crosby Stuart Noyes, directors.