LSMFT—“LORD SAVE MACARTHUR FROM TRUMAN”. When I was a little older, I realized that the welcome for General MacArthur reflected the enormous power at the time of the Chicago Tribune. President Truman had removed MacArthur from command in Korea, and the Tribune was staunchly against Truman and in favor of MacArthur. We second graders were aware of the controversy. At the time the advertising slogan for Lucky Strike cigarettes was “LSMFT—Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco”. The joke in the second grade was that “LSMFT” meant “Lord Save MacArthur from Truman”.
The front page of the April 26 Tribune reflects some of the Tribune’s world view. Even on a day on which the news was about General MacArthur’s return, the left column of the front page reported on a speech that Colonel Robert R. McCormick, the editor and publisher of the Tribune, had given to the Illinois legislature about General Ulysses S Grant. That article told about how Colonel McCormick was met at the Springfield railroad station by the representatives who had sponsored the resolution inviting the Colonel to give the speech. The article also recounted how the Colonel had visited Abraham Lincoln’s tomb and had received a splinter of stone to be placed in the wall of the Tribune Tower.
I posted about how the “WGN” was short for “World’s Greatest Newspaper” and how the Tribune had a permanent effect on my newspaper reading here and here.