The Press: Yes or No

The strike against Scripps-Howard’s World-Telegram & Sun had gone on for seven weeks. Some members of the New York Newspaper Guild last week were fed up. Twenty-two strikers formed the “Guild Committee for Common Sense,” dispatched a letter to some 450 fellow strikers, urging an end to the walkout, and started a postcard poll.

Said the committee: “Because of the tyrannical grip a small clique has upon the W-T&S unit . . . anyone who questions the leadership is called a traitor . . . The time has come for a reasonable and fair approach … Scripps-Howard has money in the bank. Some of us no longer have.” The committee suggested that the dispute over security, the chief issue, be settled by accepting management’s latest offer (the same as in the present New York Times contract).

Edward Easton, chairman of the striking unit, promptly denounced the “rump group,” charged that the letter was a “strikebreaking maneuver … apparently in cooperation with management.” Said Executive Editor Lee Wood: “We wouldn’t do anything like that.”

This week the committee tallied the first results of its poll. For accepting management’s offer or holding a meeting to vote on it, 29; against, 11.