The Press: Page No. 22 & Profits

To all but a few of the Saturday Evening Post’s tremendous family, Page No. 22 was always a page to skip. That was the editorial page, and generally the dullest in the magazine. While the G.O.P. was in power, the Satevepost rarely had anything to say editorially.

About a year ago Page No. 22 began to come to life as a critic of the New Deal. Since last New Year’s not a Tuesday has gone by without a potshot or broadside by Editor George Horace Lorimer in the general direction of Washington. Recurrently the Post flayed the Brain Trust, the Treasury, NRA, ”made” work, experimentation, the Democratic Party, President Roosevelt. It proclaimed that the Government’s “spending spree” was conceived to “make [the world] safe for everyone except those who have saved.” Of wealth it warned that “redistribution can easily become confiscation.” Its editorial titles seemed to strike Republican keynotes: “Who Is Going to Pay?,” “It’s Too Much for Me,” “Roads to Nowhere,” “Human Rights and Lefts,” “Smilin’ Through,” “The Country Needs a Rest.” With its huge circulation (2,766,000 for the first half of 1934) the Satevepost became a national mouthpiece of reaction against the New Deal.

While there is enough opposition to the Roosevelt policies to provide the Post with a substantial following for Page No. 22, it is also true that most of the U. S. remains earnestly behind the New Deal. The Satevepost’s outbursts fell on many an unfriendly ear. Result: rumbling rumors. As far back as last April it was whispered that the Post’s sudden vitality was costing it dearly in circulation. Gossip said that Editor Lorimer and his aides, Caret Garrett, Samuel Blythe, Frank Condon and Harry Leon Wilson, had slipped quietly away to Palm Springs, Calif. for a lengthy secret conference as to whether the Post should continue its bombardment of the Roosevelt Administration.

By last week rumors had crystallized into a figure: “The Satevepost has lost 400,000 readers.” That was the signal for a ringing retort in full-page newspaper advertisements by the magazine. Excerpts:

“3,074,500 COPIES*

“The Saturday Evening Post has more subscribers today than ever before in its history. Every week, for more than a year, subscriptions have increased. Newsstand sales are going up, too. . . . Why? The answers fill our mailbags every day. ‘We honor a magazine . . . that has the courage of its convictions.’

“Not only has the Satevepost more circulation, but it carried 30% more advertising for the first nine months of 1934 than in the same period last year. Curtis Publishing Co. had an exceedingly rosy third-quarter report, showing net profits up 300%†. This fact was promptly picked up by a devoted supporter of President Roosevelt and hurled back into the Satevepost’s camp. The New Dealer was Publisher Julius David Stern of the New York Post, which formerly belonged to Curtis. Last fortnight Publisher Stern wrote a sarcastic editorial, alternating choice paragraphs from the Curtis report with jittery excerpts from the Satevepost’s jittery editorials.

*Print order, not sales.

†In 1933, $1,306,000; in 1934, $5,214,000.