The Press: Stop Saluting

With a roll of drums and a rattle of discharge buttons, a magazine called Salute went out to capture the veterans’ trade in March 1946. Its staff, like its flavor, came from Yank and Stars and Stripes. But its G.I. appeal wore thin: it seemed that the most appealing thing to veterans was being a civilian again. This week in its February issue, Salute (circ. around 230,000) took off its uniform. With a new staff and a new idea, it had changed into a “picture magazine for men.”

Publisher Jeremiah Ingersoll* had been searching for a new formula since he took over Salute in mid-1946. Last fall Ingersoll hired Vernon Pope, onetime editor of Look, and Editor Morris Weeks Jr., once of Pageant, to put some snap into Salute.

The snap meant pepped-up picture stories, quiz pages, for-men-only articles, and reprints of short stories, but no ads—at least, in the February issue. Ingersoll had thrown out the cheap-looking ads that had cluttered up Salute’s pages, so that he could court more imposing accounts.

After a year of life, Pundit-Publisher David Lawrence’s weekly World Report was still losing money. The rate, said office gossip, was $10,000 a week. Last week Lawrence merged the magazine with his weekly U.S. News. Lloyd Lehrbas, executive editor of World Report and onetime roving correspondent with the A.P., resigned. As many as possible of his 50 Report staffers, said Lawrence, would be absorbed by the merged newsmagazine.

*No kin to Agnostic Robert G., Publicist Ralph McAllister, or Watchmaker Robert Hawley Ingersoll.