[3] Police stopped the arrests, which were intended to drain the newspaper's financial resources and drive it out of business, after the paper's lawyers filed an injunction.
Initially, the paper's circulation grew quickly, as it reported on Philadelphia's radical/hippie community, served as a forum for commentary on local and national politics, and provided detailed information on the city's music and arts scene from a baby boomer perspective.
Among notable contributors to the paper were Jonathan Takiff, who has been the longterm music critic at the Philadelphia Daily News; Len Lear, a later reporter for the Philadelphia Tribune and the Chestnut Hill Local; Clark DeLeon, who wrote a column for many years for the Inquirer and had a radio show on WPHT radio; and Art Carduner, an often-acerbic book reviewer in the paper, who ran his own movie theater, the Band Box in Germantown, with movies he chose to suit his own tastes.
Mike McGrath, the host of a local public radio program, You Bet Your Garden, was also a onetime entertainment editor of the Drummer.
Music critic Keith Mason was a public radio host, concert producer and later author of the historical memoir "Please Stand Up."