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sure what had transpired, but I think that the Examiner had made Herb a
fat offer to jump ship from the Chronicle, and that Herb brought it up
with Paul and probably asked for as much money--or more--than the Exwas
offering. I think that Paul took some personal affront or suffered from
some ego pains. The confrontation ended up with Herb's departure from
Fifth and Mission and relocating himself down at the old Hearst building
at Third and Market.

The Chronicle's circulation at that time--1950 or '51, I think--
was around 145,000, and the Examiner was the top gun in the Bay Area with
about 212,000. (I am not positive about these figures. However, they are
a matter of ancient and infamous record.)

At the Chronicle newsroom, during the restless aftermath of this
upheaval, Paul tried to shrug it all off. He took the public posture
that columnists, including Herb, could be discovered and developed by
brilliant editors. And Paul insisted that columnists should not be tails
wagging the newspaper dogs. He also tried to brazen out the circulation
impact of Herb's departure, posting on the staff bulletin board the daily
circulation reports from both the Chronicle and the Examiner.
Unfortunately, this tactic was not particularly successful since, as I
recall, the Chronicle circulation remained static, or slipped a little
bit, and the Examiner probably gained a few readers.

I was Sunday editor when all this happened. And the paper was
really in the doldrums. However, I was very fond of Herb. He had been
the hotshot first baseman on the Chronicle's softball team, of which I
was the manager and catcher . . I knew him well and admired him. And I
knew instinctively that historically Herb would always belong on the
Chronicle. Herb had signed a four-year contract with Hearst. When I
took over from Paul, I knew it was terribly important to keep the door
open for Herb to come back someday. Our relationship was really too
close, too personal , and I would have been embarrassed to crowd him and
tug at his sleeve to come back.

But at some point during Herb's first four-year tour of duty at the
Examiner I did send him a brief note, one sentence, more or less: "Dear
Herb, I just want you to know that there is a first baseman's mitt
hanging up for you in the Chronicle window." And that was that.

Herb renewed his Examiner contract for another four years. But the
Chronicle was plugging along with all our promotions and the development
of our great writers - -Delaplane, Hoppe, O'Flaherty, Art Rosenbaum in
sports, Charles McCabe , Count Marco, and Frances Moffat in the women's
section. And then, seven or eight years after Herb's blowup with Paul
Smith , we really began to catch up with the evil Hearst empire.

It was at about this time that one morning after the daily
Chronicle editorial conference in the meeting room next door to my
office, Al Hyman--he was one of our greatest editorial writers--followed