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In the Tribune's news columns the birth of the Chicago Sun—biggest press news of the year—was ignored. But in its home-delivered edition readers discovered a stuffer (onepage leaflet) reprinting two memos from London Correspondent Larry Rue quoting British papers' references to Marshall Field as "an enthusiastic Anglophile."
Day before the Sun came out, a full-page Tribune ad shouted its devotion to Truth: THE TRIBUNE DOES NOT PRINT FAKE STORIES OR LEND ITS COLUMNS TO PROPAGANDA DESIGNED TO MISLEAD THEM. . . . THE STEADFAST POLICY OF THE TRIBUNE IS TO PRINT THE TRUTH. . . .
But these were only pinpricks at the pro-Roosevelt Sun compared with the Tribune's nicely timed expose of President Roosevelt's "confidential" plans for an A.E.F. of 5,000,000 men.
The Sun likewise made no mention of the Tribune. But it took as its stand the belief that "the best interests of Chicago, of the Midwest and of America can best be served at this moment by the complete defeat of Adolf Hitler and everything he stands for."
The Sun still had no A.P. franchise, and its negotiations to buy the only one available from Hearst were stalled on the question of price.
The Sun also is due for many a headache before it learns how metropolitan circulation works, and especially a metropolis which Colonel McCormick got to first.
Best summing up of circulation troubles ahead was that of Bulldog Circulator Carmi Pastouchi, a stocky ex-Hearstman and truck drivers' hero who looks like a stock character out of Little Caesar. Commented he on the first night's sellout: "Dis don't mean nothin'. What is it gonna be six months from now?"
Whatever is gonna be six months from now, the Sun had already upset the status quo in Chicago publishing. Dozens of rumors were afoot. One was that Colonel McCormick, who has already applied for an afternoon A.P. franchise, would launch a new 1¢ tabloid to be run by his able cousin Captain Joe Patterson of the New York Daily News. Another was that Marshall Field might buy Frank Knox's Chicago Daily News and make it an all-day newspaper war between Field and McCormick.
As war flashed to Chicago the Sun beat the Tribune to the streets with the news. The Sun's war extra hit the streets at 4:30 p.m. — while the Sunday Tribune still headlined: U.S. NAVY SEIZES FINN SHIPS. The Tribune did not get out an extra.
But in its Monday paper the Tribune sought to make up for lost time. Under the headline JAPAN ATTACKS U.S. it ran a three-column cartoon captioned "At Your Service," showing "Every American" saluting the flag (in red, white & blue). Its page-one editorial declared: "All of us, from this day forth, have but one task. That is to strike with all our might. . . ." As crowning patriotic touch the Tribune restored its old masthead slogan from Stephen Decatur: "Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong."
Thus, three days after the Sun came out, the most publicized issue in the McCormick-Field newspaper war — isolation v. intervention — was dissolved instantly by the acids of far more consequential war in the Pacific.