The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1918-05-03
CHICAGO NEWSPAPER FAILURES

| Cedar Rapids Republican: The Chi
cago Herald has quit this life. Mr..
James Kelley after struggling for
| four years to establish his paper has
been compelled to surrender. The
Hearst papers have absorbed the pa
per. The Herald was the successor
of half dozen other Chicago papers
that have fallen by the wayside.
The Chicago newspapers have an
unsurpassed field, but the great pa
pers that have appeared to fill it are
not many. And when one compares
the Chicago papers with the great
delphta, he realizes that they are not
really the greatest newspapers in the
world as it is sometimes boosted of
them. They are far from it. Papers
like the New York Times and New
York World have never been dupi-
Gated in the western metropolis The
New York papers contain everything
except western America news and
in that respect they are so provincial
that they can hardly see across the
Hudson. The Chicago papers are
merely a little larger papers that
are printed in cities throughout the
west and their more pages are large
ly filled with matter that is mere pad
ding, especially is this true on Sun
day. when not one reader IN ten does
more with the supplemental pages
than to glance through them and
throw them away You can find the
SO called magazine sections of those
papers scattered in every hotel and
waiting room and railroad train-the
ten or twelve pages that contain the
essential news constitute the only
m fc hot ha hy1vn al n
them or that most of them ever read
And 60 far as news is concerned the
Iowa papers print it five or six hours
later, covering the hours that the
Chicago sheets are enroute to their
patrons.
The Chicago publishers have not
been wholly honest with their pat
Tons in the west, either. They sell
afternoon papers all over this state
that are not afternoon papers. How
can paper be printed in Chicago in
the afternoon and be sold on the
streets of Cedar Rapids at the same
time? It takes six or almost eight
hours for the trains and the termin-
ais to handle those papers Those
papers are printed in the morning
and they should be called late morn
ing papers. The morning papers Of
Chicago that are sold in Iowa re-
sort to the same deception. They are
not printed in the morning, but in
the evening before They are late
evening papers, nothing more than
that and they are sold as morning
papers under false pretenses. In the |
long run it always pays to be honest, |
even IN the publishing business and |
a pre-dated paper ought to state that |
it is so dated.
Davenport Times: Everything en- |
tering into the production of newspa- |
pers has increased in price by leaps !
and bounds in the last few years SO |
that frequently publications have |
struggled along, their publishers |
hoping against hope for increased in |
come but always facing a deficit It |
has been a matter of common knowl- |
edge among newspaper men that the |
Chicago Herald since Mr. Kelley took /
hold Of it in 1914 has been unprofit-
able. It was out of the question for |
the owners to continue always pay
ing losses out of their own pockets. |
1t has also been understood that the
Chicago Examiner never has been a |
paying institution. but it has contin-
led from year to year because Mr.
Hearst, a wealthy man, was able 10
put up the needed money and pocket
he losses. The consolidation is in
inc with the tendency apparent
to combine newspapers
or the purpose Of stopping losses,
md thus TO organize properties that