The Press: Great Game for Sale

When Theodore Roosevelt rough-rode up San Juan Hill, Frank Richardson Kent was starting as a political reporter on the Baltimore Sim. Today this small, smart newshawk is one of the country’s most famed commentators on political Washington. No key-hole gossip, he makes Democrats and Republicans alike quake with his breezy invective and the tart sagacity he packs into his daily column, “The Great Game of Politics,” is quoted from ocean to ocean. Yet until lately Frank Kent could be read in full nowhere except in the Baltimore Sun.

Few months ago Frank Kent’s friend William Henry Grimes, onetime Washington correspondent and now managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, persuaded the Sun to let him print “The Great Game” for a price. Soon other managing editors of other papers, who had been close personal friends of Mr. Kent’s when they were Washington correspondents, had negotiated the same sort of deal—Arthur Sinnot of the Newark News, Robert Choate of the Boston Herald, Roy Roberts of the Kansas City Star. Then for the first time the Sun agreed to full syndication of the column, yielding Pundit Kent considerable extra income. Last week McNaught Syndicate had signed contracts with 42 newspapers without trying, expected to double the list within six weeks.

Now 57 and grey-haired, Frank Kent lives in Baltimore, rides the train to Washington daily (55 min.), reads newspapers going, writes his column returning.