Associated Press owns A.P. Wirephotos and the Wideworld newsphoto service. The _Tribune_ barred sale of these pictures to Field. Acme, the Howard-dominated picture service, was likewise denied him through an “exclusive contract” between Acme and the _Tribune_. Hearst’s International News Photos were not available in Chicago because they went to the _Herald-American_. In 1942 Field spent $63,000 on pictures and $425,000 to maintain news bureaus and other items, an outlay due chiefly to the monopoly conditions he faced--which anyone who wants to publish must face. A smaller capitalist would have been licked at that point, but Field had sufficient power to launch anti-trust proceedings against Associated Press as a means of breaking out of the encirclement. The United States Supreme Court sustained Field. The _Tribune_-A.P. were forced to let him purchase the A.P. news report. But the court decision has not made a general break in the monopoly structure. If one of the major trade union bodies, for instance, wants to publish a daily newspaper in New York, Chicago, Detroit or Los Angeles, there is nothing to prevent A.P. and all the other services from declining to sell their indispensable goods. There is no use dreaming about building--on however broad a liberal-labor cooperative plane--an independent apparatus to escape the news, picture and feature service squeeze. It would cost not millions but billions. Though the services have acquired an independent existence and structure, they are basically the American press itself. The newspapers are not only their market but their major source of supply. They provide most of the local news and pictures used by the agencies. This Is Monopoly Some idea of the concentration and integration of the American newspaper industry may be obtained by a glance at Associated Press, the typical expression of the industry. A.P. has bureaus in 250 world cities, 94 within the U.S. Seven of these have fifty or more full-time staff members and the whole A.P. domestic payroll covers 7,200 employees, 1,940 on a full-time basis. A.P. also has 2,500 correspondents abroad using a leased transatlantic cable. It has 290,000 miles of leased wires linking 727 American cities. Its daily general news report alone exceeds 1,000,000 words, single metropolitan papers taking from 250,000 to 300,000 words a day. There are endless additional reports. A.P.’s 1942 expenditures totalled $12,986,000. (United Press spent $8,628,000; I.N.S., $9,434,000.) A.P.’s material reserves exceed $100,000,000.