CURRENT ISSUE :: MAY 2004:: DEJA VU

Paper Trail

From the Pages of The Wall Street Journal, 50 Years Ago

By Cynthia Crossen
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

In the 50,000 or more years of human history, five decades is a blink of the eye. But to read The Wall Street Journal of 1954 is to enter an entirely different world of business journalism.

"There’s just too much oil," complained a senior executive of an energy company, as a world-wide glut lowered gasoline and home-heating prices. Meanwhile, a special Senate subcommittee convened to investigate the malfeasance behind "sky-high" coffee prices. And a front-page article trumpeted the commercial "revolution" called "fish sticks." "Fish sticks are boneless oblongs roughly four inches long ... " explained the reporter.

This was America, 50 years ago.

Segregation and Smoking

Another 1954 story, about research showing that women with charge cards spent more at department stores than those with cash, revealed the paper’s demographics. The reporter included this winking explication: "Milady has a kindlier feeling toward all departments of a store once she has an account there. (Translation for husbands: She wants to buy everything she sees.)"

Other stories were horrifying. One, headlined, "South Carolina’s First Big All-Negro Factory Will Start Up Today," explained that "state law prohibits the employment of white and Negro women side by side in the same mill or factory." If a manufacturer employed both races in different capacities, it was illegal for the two "to use the same stairways at the same time."

A full-page advertisement with the title "A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers," announced the creation of the Tobacco Industry Research Committee, which would be "disinterested" and "of unimpeachable integrity" in analyzing the "inconclusive" links between smoking and cancer. For 300 years, the ad copy noted, "critics have held [tobacco] responsible for practically every disease of the human body. One by one these charges have been abandoned for lack of evidence."

But the cancer alarm was already taking a toll on the sale of cigarettes. In a page-one article about prospects for the tobacco industry, a company vice president predicted, "We are of the opinion the cancer scare will wear off. We’ve been through similar things before."

In 1954, Dwight Eisenhower was president. The economy was dominated by manufacturing jobs, and labor-union membership reached its all-time high, about 35% of the U.S. work force. A desirable middle-class house was 800 square feet, had knotty-pine paneling and cost $7,000. Most cars had standard transmissions; only "deluxe" models had power steering or brakes. C.A. Swanson & Sons of Omaha introduced a frozen "TV dinner"—turkey, sweet potatoes and peas—for 89 cents.

Time Inc. would launch its new sports weekly in August, but a brief article in the spring noted the company still hadn’t selected a name. Under consideration, according to the article, were "TALLY, WILD and TROPS (sport spelled backward)." They decided on Sports Illustrated.

Joseph McCarthy’s investigation of Communist subversion in the U.S. finally made television, but the senator’s star was falling. His colleagues would censure him later that year.

‘A Wonderful Aid’

A yearly subscription to the one-section Wall Street Journal cost $20 a year (It’s $198 today). The daily statistics of the New York Stock Exchange required only one page. In an advertisement soliciting subscribers, the Journal described itself as "a wonderful aid to salaried men making $7,000 to $20,000."

Like most American newspapers in 1954, the Journal sold classified advertising that specified age—"Personal loan officer wanted by bank ... Under 50 years"—and gender: "A large firm, making a high-quality steel product, seeks a man of presidential qualifications ... " A woman seeking a position as an executive secretary described herself as "attractive."

Indeed, the business world was innocent of both affirmative action and political correctness. At U.S. Steel’s 1954 annual meeting, a female shareholder nominated Therese Noble, former head of the American Silk Spinning Co., to U.S. Steel’s board. "In re the proposition of bringing a lady on board," responded an "elderly, bearded" stockholder, "until U.S. Steel has a nylon-making subsidiary, steel working is no job for the petticoats."

Of course, some things never change. A Republican congressman charged the Democrats with being "sadists." A Democratic congressman called the Republicans "mean and dastardly." A Democratic senator said the Republicans were "rat-alley" politicians, and a Republican senator said the Democrats were "not only full of corruption but stupidity as well," according to a Journal editorial.