When St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial Writer George Hall dines with certain friends, he knows that he is welcome—but his paper is so detested that it is not allowed over the doorstep. When St. Louis Public Relations Man Harry Wilson has an important news item for the press, he is torn between releasing it in time for the morning Globe-Democrat or the afternoon Post-Dispatch—either way, one of the papers is sure to squawk. When Globe Food Editor Marian O'Brien was writing a column recently, she got carried away by the combative sense of loyalty that seems to infect both dailies: "Our paper is so different from its so-called competition that I have readers come up to me and say they couldn't face the day without their copy of the Globe."
Such intense feelings are all too rare in these days of declining newspaper competition. Yet in St. Louis, rivalry is still very much alive—which is all the more surprising considering that the papers appear on the newsstands at different times of day. As in other cities where there is no competition in the morning or evening, the papers could simply settle down and enjoy their profits. Instead the Globe and the P-D choose to fight it out. And the citizens of St. Louis fight right along with them. "Some swear by the Globe," says former Mayor Raymond Tucker, now professor of urban affairs at Washington University, "and some swear by the Post-Dispatch." And some swear at them. "Unfair, reactionary, hip-shooting" are epithets commonly hurled at the Globe. "Sluggish, effete, unpatriotic" are some of the names the Post-Dispatch is called. "The kindest word our critics use is liberal," says P-D Architectural Writer George McCue.
To Join or Not to Join. One cause of competition is publishers. Except for the fact that both went to Harvard, they have virtually nothing in common. The Post-Dispatch's Joseph Pulitzer Jr., 54, grandson of the founder, is urbane, aristocratic, international-minded and remote. Globe Publisher Richard H. Amberg, 55, who was brought in from Syracuse by Sam Newhouse when he bought the paper in 1955, is hard driving, domineering, locally oriented and a joiner. He is reputed, in fact, to have joined more civic organizations than any other publisher in the U.S., and he is constantly supporting local causes in his paper. "He gets into every nook and cranny," says Pulitzer, an art collector whose own local activities are confined pretty much to cultural causes. "If he sees an opening, he's in there. I try to be careful to disassociate myself from boards and committees that could distort my news judgment." Retorts Amberg, who has just raised more than $1,000,000 for a Herbert Hoover Boys' Club he is sponsoring in a Negro neighborhood of St. Louis: "How can you tell what's going on in a community unless you're part of it?"