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Fun-poking aside, "sob stuff and sex . . . comics and corpses" are by no means the major product of the Toronto Star. It is a thoroughgoing, highly organized newspaper. No venture is too great or too small for its attention. Thirty years ago it was the first newspaper in the world to use wireless for news reporting. In 1910 it started its weekly edition, circulation of which has zoomed from 9,000 to 317,000, which is 53% of Toronto's population. In 1921 it opened a radio station. Seven years later it beat the world on the crack-up of the transatlantic plane Bremen on remote Greenly Island. Two years ago Hitler banned the Star from Germany. In 1935 the Star has a showplace plant, the largest daily circulation in Canada. It leads all Canadian newspapers in advertising lineage; last March was surpassed in North America only by the Washington Star and New York Time.* The Star began in 1892 as a measly sheetlet ground out by a handful of striking printers. Its modern history dates from 1895 when Sir William Mackenzie and Sir Donald Mann, transit tycoons, bought the paper for $20,000 to propagandize Sunday street car service. Their fight won, they sold out to Peter Larkin (Salada Tea), Herbert Coplin Cox (Canada Life Assurance), Sir William Mulock (jurist). These three, bent on promoting the Liberal party, looked around for an able editor, found him in Montreal editing the Herald. Joseph Atkinson accepted editorship of the Star on condition that he have a free hand.
Under Editor Atkinson, a radical editor in a Tory community, the Star prospered amazingly. Of its three local competitors (Telegram, Globe, Mail & Empire) only the arch-conservative Mail & Empire still has a growing circulation. The trade hears that next year the Star will be able to operate on circulation revenue alone (2¢ daily, 10¢ .Saturday Star Weekly). The property, which "owes no man a dollar," is now owned by Publisher Atkinson, his son Joseph S., his daughter, and his son-in-law Harry Hindmarsh. Nearly 70, hard of hearing, Mr. Atkinson has delegated most executive authority to Vice President Hindmarsh. Spectacled, meticulous, kindly, Publisher Atkinson is called "ruthless" by his competitors, "determined" by his friends. He wields great political influence, shies from cameras and interviewers. He neither drinks nor smokes, refuses to accept liquor advertising.
* According to Media Records, Inc.