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That a paper which many newsmen rated "the least fair and reliable" should be an outstanding success does not mean that its journalistic sins are profitable. The Tribune's success can be laid to other factors than its news. It has always had a great and tough circulation department, perfected by that wizard of circulation, the late Max Annenberg, who fought Hearst with almost gangster methods, and carried on by Max's blasphemous brother-in-law, Louis Rose. No small credit for the Tribune's fat profit belongs to Business Manager W. E. Macfarlane.
The Tribune also has built its circulation with some good editorial matter outside of news. Its features are of the best and among the most expensive: its comics, its color sections, its rotogravure, its serials, its columnists (notably the late humorist B.L.T.). For Colonel McCormick, although he considers himself an aristocrat, believes, up to a point, in giving the public what it wants.
How to Run a Newspaper. More than ever the Tribune is McCormick's shadow. In his 24th-floor office in the $18,000,000 Gothic Tribune Tower the Colonel runs the Tribune strictly according to his, and nobody else's, whims, fancies, prejudices. From his red-&-white marble desk runs a direct wire to Managing Editor J. Loy ("Pat") Maloney. Over it all day the Colonel feeds his ideas. His story suggestions go forth initialed "R.R.McC.", meaning that they get into the Tribune for sure, and generally page 1.
At noon, surrounded by editors and cartoonists, the Colonel monologues his angles on the state of the world, the nation and Chicago. Presently his ideas return to his desk patly translated into editorials and cartoons, receive a further polish with McCormick brimstone. Afternoons he confers, or soliloquizes, with heads of advertising, promotion, circulation, mechanical departments.
At lunch, in a private dining room called the Overset Club, the Colonel gathers around him Tribune executives (and an occasional big advertiser or politician), again soliloquizes while the McCormick-dyed listeners await his cue to begin their meal.
Against plain reporters (whose heads are sometimes lopped off with inexplicable suddenness) Publisher McCormick lives as securely insulated as against the noises of the Tribune presses or the people on Michigan Avenue below to whom he supplies the kind of newspaper he thinks they need. ("Of course, the people want this," McCormick says of majority opinion, "but they don't know where it is leading them. I do.")
For services rendered, the Colonel pays well. Editors' bonuses sometimes amount to several times their salary. All employes get free dental cleaning, free medical examination, cut-rate medical services, may even buy life insurance through the Tribune, or borrow money for homes from its own savings and loan company funds. Tribune newlyweds receive gifts of flat silver. And once a year the Colonel, in cutaway, receives all Tribune employes (3,000) in the main lobby, treats them to coffee and sandwiches. Paternalism on the Tribune, administered with feudal directness by the Colonel himself, has had potent influence on his staff.