Music: No Sale

When the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia convened one day last week to decide what should become of the Washington Post (TIME, June 221 Hearst’s Editor Arthur Brisbane was in the courtroom. So was Editrix Eleanor Patterson of Hearst’s Washington Herald, and many a potent Hearst attorney. Guessers guessed that Publisher Hearst’s ,offer of $3,000.000 for the Post, with his own Herald and Times as security, might be taken up in preference to a somewhat similar offer by David Lawrence, publisher of the United States Daily, who also sat in the courtroom. Hearst would, no doubt, merge the Post with his Herald.

But what about the expected bid of Mrs. Evelyn Walsh McLean, estranged wife of the Post’s Publisher Edward Beale (“Ned”) McLean? Fortnight ago she had halted the proposed sale to Lawrence on the ground that the newspaper should be preserved for her three children. The other trustees of old John R. McLean’s estate were, meanwhile, itching to complete a profitable sale of the unprofitable daily.

As the final hearing opened last week, one of the trustees began speaking in favor of the Hearst offer. He had not gone far when a lawyer for Ned McLean interrupted, told the court that Ned had changed his mind. He did not want to sell the Post after all. The other trustees expostulated, asserted that if money continued “to be poured into the Post, the estate of John R. McLean will become a mere myth.” But by terms of his father’s will, Ned’s lone veto was sufficient. The sale was off.

Explained Ned to newsmen afterward: “I wanted to protect the children. I did not want to let go of the paper. It did not occur to me until two days ago that a sale of the Post would throw about 300 men out of work.”