When the two competing newspapers in Dayton, Ohio, offered to sell out to Publisher James M. Cox last summer, he was "a bit shocked." Ohio's spry, old ex-governor and Democratic presidential candidate (1920) doesn't "like newspaper monopolies." But a careful look at the books changed his mind. His own evening paper, the Dayton Daily News (circ. 96,000), was financially sound. The rival morning Journal (circ. 41,000) and evening Herald (circ. 66,000), both published by ex-Marine Colonel Lewis B. Rock, were not.
Newsprint costs and wages were too high for Rock, who still owed about $1,000,000 on the purchase of the papers in...
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