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Luncheon Club. While the editors make the day-to-day news judgments, it is Publisher Sulzberger who in the long run makes the final decisions about the news, editorial and general publishing policies. But he does so, says he, only after "talking things out and, on many occasions, being willing to give way rather than give orders." Every day at noon, Sulzberger talks things out with Julius Adler, vice president and general manager of the Times, who helps look after its business, mechanical and circulation side, and is better known outside the Times as a veteran of both wars and a major general (reserve).
A good deal more of the "talking out" takes place at Sulzberger's daily lunch in the Times dining room with the top editors. Distinguished guests who often attend the luncheons are gravely assured by Publisher Sulzberger, who never tires of a single pun, that anything they say is sub rosa. (Point: the ceiling is garlanded with roses.) The male members of this exclusive luncheon club are Managing Editor James; Assistant Managing Editor Catledge; Assistant to the Publisher (and son-in-law) Orvil Eugene Dryfoos; Editor Charles Merz, boss of the editorial page; General Adler; Washington Correspondent Krock (when he's in town), and Sunday Editor Lester Markel, 56 (TIME, March 8, 1948), the restless, smart and hard-driving boss of the four excellent Sunday feature sections, which have helped boost the Sunday Times from 778,000 to 1,153,000 circulation since he joined the staff as Sunday editor 27 years ago.
The only woman who sits at the oval luncheon table is Correspondent McCormick, whose first contribution to the Times was a poem for which she got $3.50. Her second, written from Italy in 1921, was a comprehensive account of the rise of fascism and helped win her a job and a start on the career that has raised her to topmost bracket among foreign political correspondents—male or female.
On the Other Hand. The Times's specific editorial stand on any question is decided by Sulzberger and Editor Merz. In actual practice, Merz and his eight editorial writers decide what the Times will say. Sulzberger rarely reads the editorials until they are in print, because he and Merz see eye to eye on most things.
In spite of such close agreement, readers do not always get the opinions of able Editor Merz in the sharp, clear form in which they are laid down in conference, because Times editorials are often hedged.
The Times never crusades, and carries no daily editorial-page cartoon because, says Sulzberger smilingly: "a cartoon cannot say: 'But on the other hand.'" Part of this caution is due to the powerful tradition left by old Adolph Ochs himself.
At a time when most newspapers were fiercely partisan. Ochs believed that a newspaper could—and should—be absolutely impartial, factual and "objective" in printing the news, and that editorials which took too unqualified a stand might color the judgment of men who were reporting the news. Thus, he ran only editorials that were mere explanations of the news.