Evening star., 1952-06-07
Diligence and Loyalty Credited
In Staff Purchase of Enquirer
Jubilunt Employees
Snake Dance Through
Cincinnati City Room
By George Kennedy

By George Kennedy
How the employees Of the Cin-|
|cinnatl Enquirer on short notice
raised $7.6 million in cash to buy
their newspaper = an amazing
financial feat was told last night
|by James H. Ratliff. jr., the re-
porter who headed the drive.
And back in Cincinnati. Mr..
lRatliff'S jubilant co-WorkerS1
snake danced through the city
room to the booming cadence Of al
bass drum.
Hubert Taft, editor and pub
Usher of the Times-S Star, said in
an editorial. we are not upset by
the final result" II
He said he read Of the sale Ito
ia day-old employees company
without rancor and indeed without
regret"
Cash ON Barrelhead.
Chief Judge Bolitha J. Laws
tof District Court yesterday ap-
proved the sale to the employees
whose cash on the barrelhead
performance shut out a bid by
the Cincinnati Times-Star, owned
by the Taft family.
Surrounded by admiring law
yers and financial men, so tired
from his 45-day fight for the
paper that at intervals he kept
Jumping up and walking the
floor again. Jim was having a
drink at the Carlton Hotel to
celebrate the victory.
The lawyers and financial men
were agreed on one thing: It was
Jim Ratliff alone who made the
purchase possible. You won't find
his name in the Editor 81 Pub
Usher listing of the papers man
|agement-that is, not till the next
edition. Jim was a reporter on
the Enquirer. Now he's vice presi-
dent Of the paper. He is 40 and
bespectacled, a slender man Of
medium height whose curly hair
is quite gray.
On General Assignments.
When the crisis came he was
doing general assignments for the
city desk and conducting a sun
day column on rather serious
subjects such as the effect of
u. N. treaties on domestic law.
He had been just a reporter until
"a year before when he used the
Itechniques he learned in the
Armys counterintelligence service
in series of articles showing the
extent of Communist infiltration
in Cincinnati.
One day In February, to the
surprise of the staff. aefropt page
story announced that the Enquirer
had been sold by the trustee, the
American Security 81 Trust Co.
of Washington. to the opposition
paper, the Tirmes-Star. An edito-
rial stated how pleased the En-
quirer was about its new owner
ship.
Enquirer people," said Jim,
''have a tremendous loyalty to-
their paper. They felt they had
given the opposition quite a beat
ing. In the past 26 years the
Enquirer had trfpled its circula-
ton and passed the Times-S
Our circulation was about lS5, 900;
theirs about $50, 200. We certainly
didn't appreciate being sold to
them.
Pledges From Employees.
"We went to the employees for
pledges of stock purchases of ST.
900 or more in case we were able
to form a corporation and buy
the paper. OF 800 employees, 476
subscribed. One man in the COM
posing room pledged $40 900. There
were some holdouts but most of
the non-subscribers were employees
who just didn't have the $1,000.
"We got Halsey Stuart in
terested. one Of the biggest in
Ivestment houses in the country i
They agreed to- underwrite a $6l
million bond issue if we could
raise SIS million with 4 stock
issue. IT looked as If we were on
the verge of success. But the
trustees objected that all this
would have to await SEC approval
and, in the meantime, they might
miss selling at the price offered
by the Tafts.
III. L. Stuart Of Halsey Stuart
got SO interested he called upl
Cyrus Eaton and told him what
we were trying to do. I talked to
Eaton on the telephone week
ago Wednesday night. 7 told him
we would have to move fast and
he said, I'm a man who does
things quickly