USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Metropolitan Boston; a modern history; Volume II > Part 28
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47
Very different is the other episode which now claims attention. Months before the receivership the "Evening Herald" suspended publi- cation. The evening edition owned an Associated Press franchise, one of the most valuable properties an American newspaper can acquire. To keep a franchise a newspaper must actually be published and sold. Own- ers can not simply retain such a property and make no use of it. Cessa- tion of publication and sale for a certain length of time, under the rules of the time, cancels the franchise. On Friday afternoon, May 7, 1909, the business manager, Colonel Frank B. Stevens, told Harry Fletcher, the manager of the commercial printing department, that he was in a bad predicament. No evening paper had been put on sale during the fran- chise period which would expire on the following Monday; Colonel Haskell was out of touch in New York City and could not be located ;
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what was to be done? The building was almost empty. One man was in charge in the composing room. There were only a few other scattered individuals about the plant.
It was Fletcher who proposed the plan that saved the franchise. They would produce and sell an evening paper. "Upstairs" he obtained enough galleys of type-"left overs," "not runs," "bull dog," very miscellaneous in character-to fill four pages of "Herald" size. An item or two of actual local news he wrote and "set up" himself, dealing with matters of which he happened to have personal knowledge. The title, "Boston Eve- ning Times," was also set in the job room. Working almost all night with a creaking old job press Fletcher succeeded in running off 50 copies of this suddenly established new publication. Next morning Colonel Stevens took a bundle of these papers under his arms and in School Street in the presence of a witness he made a bonafide sale of a copy to a friend. That Saturday afternoon a second and last issue of this make- shift publication was prepared in the same manner. The imprint stated, of course, that the publisher was The Boston Publishing Company. The paper contained a column of editorials. One "news item" began with an allusion to "an exclusive" in the "Times" of the evening before! That same evening Frank W. Buxton, now the managing editor, made a sale of a copy of this second issue, to Arthur W. Constantine, then of the Sunday department, and now in Mexico. The facts were verified and available if needed. Little ever was said about the matter. But the technicality had been complied with. At a later date the "Evening Her- ald" resumed publication.
The receivership of 1910 was low tide for the paper. Various devices were employed to save the "Herald," all without success. The bond- holders organized a company to take over the paper, which was to be operated by Robert Lincoln O'Brien as editor and John Wells Farley as business manager, they to be guided by five trustees, representing the several phases of ownership directly or indirectly; these trustees were Henry Lee Higginson, Richard Olney, John H. Holmes, Robert Burnett and Henry S. Howe. The receivers had been John Norris, a veteran newspaper man, representing as the largest creditor the International Paper Company, and Charles Frederick Weed, now a vice-president of the First National Bank of Boston. They adopted a systematic policy of non-interference with the skeleton organization and retained all the key men among the employees. The purpose was to salvage the property. At the time the new management assumed office the figures for the press runs stood at an amazingly low mark-for the morning paper 46,000, for the evening paper 7,000, for the Sunday paper 38,500, and these figures were dropping at the rate of 500 a week. The old management the year before the receivership had lost $240,000.
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The ensuing struggle was hard. Courage, initiative, and tenacity account for the success of that long and strong pull which carried the paper back to the summit of the hill. One great stroke was the purchase of the "Traveller," then owned by the estate of Albert F. Holden of the "Cleveland Plain Dealer," and Sidney W. Winslow, Jr. This consolida- tion was effected on July 1, 1912. The "Traveler" had been a seven- column paper ; it had a circulation of 91,000. It now went to the eight- column size, and the united evening papers were published from the "Herald" building as the "Traveler and the Evening Herald," until May 8, 1914, when the name was shortened to "The Boston Traveler." An amount of reorganization now took place; the trustees dropped out, and the business manager of the "Traveler," James H. Higgins, came to the "Herald" to succeed in time Mr. Farley; he remained with the paper until his health gave way, when for some time, M. M. Lord, as a repre- sentative of Mr. Higgins, was in charge. E. W. Preston, who had been advertising manager under Mr. Higgins, succeeded to the business man- agership. Mr. O'Brien has retained his place throughout. The succes- sion of "Traveler" editors has been: Edgar D. Shaw, John Spargo, Ernest Gruening, Walter Emerson, Howard F. Brock, Moses H. Wil- liams, and Harold F. Wheeler, who assumed office on September 18, 1922. Another advantageous business stroke was the acquisition of the "Jour- nal." The announcement of purchase appeared in the "Herald" on Sat- urday, October 6, 1917, and on the next Monday the combined papers were put out from the "Herald" plant at the "Herald and Journal," and both names were carried thus until January 2, 1919, when the latter name was dropped from the title. The prestige and prosperity of the "Herald" are as great today as ever before. Twice it has won the Pulitzer Editorial Prize, one for an article by Frank W. Buxton, printed in 1924, and again for an article by F. Lauriston Bullard, printed in 1926. The Sunday editor is Paul Waitt. The directors of the Boston Publishing Company, which produces the three papers, "The Herald," "The Traveler," and "The Sunday Herald," are: Charles F. Choate, Jr., Sidney W. Winslow, Jr., Herbert F. Winslow, Daniel G. Wing, Edwin D. Brown, Robert L. O'Brien, and E. W. Preston.
The "Boston Globe," much younger than the "Herald," has a history much less complicated. Maturin Murray Ballou, a son of the Rev. Hosea Ballou, the distinguished Universalist, author and traveler, founder of "Gleason's Pictorial" (later "Ballou's Pictorial"), the first illustrated weekly magazine published in America, was most prominent among the group which started the "Globe" in 1872, and as the originator of the enterprise he became the first editor. But it was not so easy then as in the years preceding the Civil War to make a success of a newspaper venture. The risks were far greater. He surrounded himself with a staff
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of able men, including E. P. Whipple and Alexander Young, and he advertised his design to print "an able and dignified journal, strictly inde- pendent in principles, untrammeled by any party associations whatever, and uninfluenced by sympathy with the various sects and cliques of the day." He announced that his "treatment of political and social ethics" would be "free from all such bias as is prescribed by party lines"; his "sole criterion" would be that of "strict justice and the furtherance of the best interests of the largest number." The paper's initial number was presented to the public on Monday morning, March 4, with eight pages handsomely printed with seven columns to a page. The publication offices then bore the number 92 on Washington Street.
But the training of the editor had been with magazines chiefly and there was merit in the criticism that the new publication was a weekly paper printed every day. In the first fifteen months of its existence it lost its promoters $100,000, a large sum by the standards of fifty years ago. One editor followed another in rapid succession. Clarence S. Wason was advanced from the city editorship to the office of managing editor ; he soon gave way to Edmund H. Hudson, who also resigned after only a few weeks, when the concern was largely reorganized and Edwin M. Bacon became editor-in-chief. Mr. Bacon, well known as an author- ity on Boston history, remained with the paper until March 1, 1878.
Now it happened that in June, 1873, Charles H. Taylor, who had been the private secretary of Governor Claflin and subsequently the clerk of the House of Representatives, had occasion to call on the committee that had been appointed to select a new manager for the "Globe" in the inter- est of a certain aspirant for that responsible but not too alluring position, and that the committee, with excellent discernment, chose for the place not the Taylor candidate, but Mr. Taylor himself. He declined the pro- posal. It was renewed two months later. Taylor finally accepted the offer on August 18, with the understanding that he might have the option of retirement after a "trial trip" of a few weeks. The story of the long period that followed, and how during most of those years the names of General Taylor and the "Globe" were used interchangeably, is part of the history of American journalism. When Taylor started the paper was the most expensive in the city, selling at four cents a copy. Only the "Tran- script" exceeded its size. It had a circulation of barely 8,000, and carried only fifteen columns of advertising, mostly of a somewhat inferior kind. James Morgan, the biographer of General Taylor, says that the "Globe" was spending $180,000 a year and taking in only $120,000, sustaining every working day a deficit of $200-"quite a load for a man of 27 years." And general conditions grew worse. The next month wit- nessed the failure of the great banking house of Jay Cooke, a crash that shook the financial firmament. Swiftly on the heels of that calamity
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came the "panic of '73." Very hard times ensued. For four years the young journalist had to fight his way an inch at a time through a mass of obstacles every day that would speedily have terminated the newspaper interest of a less resourceful and ingenious man. His memorialist tells how Taylor kept "only one jump ahead of the sheriff, living from hand to mouth, borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, meeting the Saturday payroll out of Monday's receipts from the newsdealers two days before they came in, balancing the bank account at the last tick of the clock." There were two crises to be faced every day. One befel in early afternoon as the hour for the closing of the banks drew near. The other loomed in early evening when the negotiations for the white paper for to-morrow's edition had to be completed. A difficulty of the first magnitude was the lack of the service of the Associated Press. Various papers in like condi- tion in many cities did what they could to supply each other with the news by means of an extemporized and wobbly association, and they relied also on obtaining somehow copies of the first editions of the "A. P." papers. Wit and speed of foot were at a premium at night in the Newspaper Row not only of Boston but of many another American city. On November 2, 1874, the size of the "Globe" was reduced from seven columns to six, and the price from four cents to three. The pub- lisher frankly stated that retrenchment ought to be the order of the day with business conditions what they were the Nation over, and the paper affirmed its intention to "continue to be, as it has been under the present management, a complete wide-awake newspaper, thorough in all its departments, independent, outspoken, and progressive."
But all the original owners lost confidence in the future and gave up the battle excepting only one. This was Eben D. Jordan, of the Jordan & Marsh department store. Taylor himself said that he borrowed $100,000 with no assets but a wife and five children, and the assumption is that this capital came from Mr. Jordan. And then in five years the "Globe" lost $300,000! Then in 1878 the paper executed an "about face." Mr. Bacon retired. The independent policy was abandoned. The "Globe" came out as "a 2-cent morning and evening folio." It became Demo- cratic in politics. The former owner of the "Herald," E. C. Bailey, assumed the editorship. But he stayed not long, and Benjamin P. Palmer succeeded as managing editor, while Frederick E. Goodrich, formerly with the "Post," undertook to write the leaders. After some years M. P. Curran, who had long been a member of the editorial staff, took over the work of editorial writing. The publisher startled the community at about the time the great shift was made by the establishment on October 14, 1877, of the Sunday paper, and followed up this new venture by the establishment of an evening edition on Thursday, March 7, 1878. A
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weekly "Globe," it may be noted, ran from January 3, 1873, to April 27, 1892.
And now miracles became as numerous as mishaps had been. In three weeks the circulation tripled, going from 10,000 to 30,000. That year for the first time there was no deficit. The next year and in every year since there has been a profit. The assumption of the garb of Democ- racy accounts doubtless for this sudden jump to popularity. Boston had no aggressively Democratic newspaper. The "Post" at the time was not a very active warrior in the political arena. The "Globe" helped elect Benjamin Butler to the Governorship in 1883. It helped him in his campaign against the Tewksbury Almshouse. Feature by feature the "Globe" acquired the characteristics which distinguish the paper today. It sought for stories of "human interest." It printed a lot of poetry. It used much fiction, both short and continued stories. It campaigned for women readers. It exploited topics of interest to young people. It looked out for good humor; Bill Nye, Mr. Dooley and George Ade, one after the other brought their wares to its columns. It took on the corre- spondence of such men as "Gath," whose real name was George Alfred Townsend, Joseph Howard, and Frank G. Carpenter. As a matter of course, it improved its mechanical facilities. One thing the manager refused to do until he stood almost alone in that respect among the newspapermen of the land ; he persisted in his objection to the then usual price of one cent for a daily.
What the indomitable Taylor always claimed to have been his "best idea" can be seen by reference to No. 89 of Volume XX of the "Globe" file, issued on September 27, 1881, the day of the funeral of President Garfield. Mr. Taylor made up his mind that this issue should respond to the outbursts of emotion over the country and 'round the world by print- ing as a memorial edition a full page of original poems written especially for that occasion. John Boyle O'Reilly wrote for it a poem on the toll- ing of the bells. Walt Whitman by a happy chance was in town. Some New England poet of distinction must appear in that page. Taylor went to Holmes, to Whittier, then to Holmes again. The second time the newspaper man offered the doctor and verse maker $600 for a contribu- tion. Holmes told Taylor to see him the following morning. When that morning arrived there was Taylor posted like a sentinel on the steps of the Medical School. When Holmes appeared he said to Taylor: "See me after the lecture." At length the two men met in a room in the build- ing. The doctor asked the newspaper man just what his position might be in the offices of the "Globe." Taylor offered to return in an hour with a proof of the poem and a certified check for the sum of money he had named. And so it was done, and the poem duly appeared. That
Met. Bos .- 37
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souvenir edition made such a sensation as a crime wave never has pro- duced. It was unique. The whole first page was filled with poetry, all new and original, by good authors, and written for the day itself. In the list of authors, besides those already named, were Joaquin Miller, Minot J. Savage, Kate Tannatt Wells, Julia Ward Howe, and others whose names today are not so well remembered. Walt Whitman's six lines were notable. The last was:
Those heartbeats of the Nation in the night.
That edition sold 40,000 extra copies, and one in four of the new buyers stayed with the paper.
The friendship and business counsel of Mr. Jordan were invaluable to the energetic manager of a paper now well on the way to security and pronounced success. He helped Taylor with advice as new problems appeared. Steadfastly Taylor refused in after years to take any measures to obtain possession of the Jordan stock. At the death of this invaluable merchant friend, Jordan had a majority of the shares, but he arranged in his will that all his stock above one-half should be sold to Taylor, and today the Taylor and Jordan estates still divide the ownership equally between them. A new building next to the original plant was entered in 1887, when the circulation figures of both the daily and the Sunday edi- tions stood at about 100,000. In 1902 the "Globe" purchased the old "Advertiser" Building at 246-248 Washington Street, which had been partly destroyed by fire some time before. In 1910 the Globe Newspaper Company announced circulations for the daily and the Sunday papers, respectively, of 178,000 and 321,000; the corresponding figures for 1920 were 282,000 and 328,000; in 1922 they were 295,000 and 310,000. For years there was a stern struggle between the "Post" and the "Globe" for primacy in circulation. The "young man" who insisted he must have a "slice of the cake" won, but the "Globe" well maintains itself as a paper that changes slowly and holds its friends.
The "Globe" was General Taylor and General Taylor was the "Globe." Just as the Civil War began he had gone to work in School Street in a job printing office at a third of a dollar a day. Soon he became a chore boy about the offices of the "Traveller." He was under the required age when he enlisted as a private in the Union Army. After fourteen months he came home wounded, and entered the composing room of the "Traveller" at five dollars a week. He volunteered his services for the collection of police court news. He learned shorthand. At nineteen he was a regular "Traveller" reporter. Luck gave him a "scoop" for his paper over no less a competitor than Charles Carleton Coffin of the "Jour- nal," at the time of the Fenian raid on Canada in 1866. A voluntary con- tribution to the "New York Tribune" of a full report of the valedictory of
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William Lloyd Garrison obtained for him the post of "Tribune" corre- spondent with a stipend of about $1,200 a year. As private secretary to Governor Claflin he acquired the title of "Colonel," and throughout the later years of his life he was known everywhere as "General" Taylor. He died on June 22, 1921, a little before what would have been his seventy- fifth birthday. His passing has made very little change in the policies of the paper. The inheritance went to his sons, of whom William O. Taylor is now the "Globe's" executive manager. The marked individuality of the man who made the "Globe" still controls.
Among the "Globe's" specialties of late years have been comprehen- sive election tabulations. An organization carefully built up through the years, the repudiation of all temptation to guess, the refusal of tolera- tion of any taking of chances, account for the respect in which the paper's figures are held. Several times this practice of stating results only when they are really known to be correct has saved the paper from serious error, as in 1884, when Blaine and Cleveland were pitted against each other; in 1916, when Woodrow Wilson was saved from defeat by the vote of far California, and in 1892, when Russell the third time ran for Governor of Massachusetts, and himself sat up with the "Globe" reports until almost daybreak. The habit of the paper to run long rosters of names of men and women present at meetings of clubs and societies, at dinners and reunions, has made friends for the "Globe." General Taylor wanted people to "see their names in the paper." He gave vast amounts of space to local events of the kind commonly printed in local publica- tions and usually omitted from metropolitan dailies. It no doubt is true that on a time when he heard that the "Herald" intended to add a new man to its roster of European correspondents, General Taylor instantly said that he must have an extra man for South Boston. For years the "Globe" has done little by way of regular comment on questions of the day. Instead the paper prints a long article on the editorial page every day dealing often with a topic unrelated to the news and signed "Uncle Dudley." Various men are known to have written these articles, among them James Morgan, James H. Powers, William S. Packer, Lucien Price, and Thaddeus Defriez.
On July 25, 1927, the "Boston News Bureau" celebrated the fortieth anniversary of the establishment of that now universally known financial daily newspaper. No. I of Vol. I, issued on Monday, July 25, 1887, from the printing shop of Nathan Sawyer & Son at 70 State Street, was a single sheet, about fourteen by nine and one-half inches, containing two wide columns on each page, but with the second column on the back page empty. This little sheet displayed some thirty bulletins averaging ten lines each, and was itself described as "a summary of bulletins." Like the "Globe" in the case of General Taylor, the "News Bureau" and its
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allied publications represent quite faithfully the personality of their founder.
Clarence W. Barron had been for eleven years in the service of the "Transcript," first as financial reporter and then as editor, when he con- ceived the idea that a "fast business and financial service could be made of incalculable value to bankers and brokers." He began to send out his now familiar little bulletins, each containing a few lines of crisp and definite news about stocks, bonds, exchange, and any kind of topics which might prove of value to business men, at the average rate of thirty a day, laboring himself incessantly from early morning to late evening. These bulletins, distributed rapidly through the business centre by mes- senger to subscribers, were compacted into the daily to which the unusual name of "News Bureau" was applied. For four decades the projector of this original enterprise has continued in the furrow which then he began to plow. The record probably is one of constant growth. In 1902 Mr. Barron bought the entire business of Dow, Jones & Company, with the "Wall Street Journal," the "Electric Page News Ticker," and the news bulletins issued by that concern. A few years more and he established a "News Bureau" in Philadelphia, this at a time when apparently Boston and Philadelphia were likely to be closely allied in railway matters. Finally, on May 9, 1921, "Barron's Weekly" made its appearance as a financial periodical designed for National circulation. These four publi- cations are closely linked together and freely interchange their news. They have offices with staff representatives in six American cities besides Boston, New York and Philadelphia, and in Paris and London.
The Boston quarters have been several times removed, but never far away from the Stock Exchange ; in 1912 the present quarters were taken at 30 Kilby Street. Such publications must depend for their value on the enterprise with which they acquire the news and the celerity with which they distribute it. It is of record that when the great blizzard of 1888 took New York City completely out of touch with the rest of the world, the "News Bureau" used horses, telegraph and cable wires, and to some extent the telephone, which then was thought of as hardly more than an agreeable plaything, and scored a real hit with its patrons by obtaining tidings and quotations from New York by way of London, paying four cable charges for each message.
The "News Bureau" today has a page size of about fourteen by twenty inches spaced into three columns; the issues range from twelve to twenty-four pages ; book paper is used; typographically the publica- tion is excellent, and of course accuracy is a primary consideration. Tabulations abound in every issue, and the market quotations for the Boston and New York Exchanges always are an outstanding feature. The publisher is Mr. Barron; his son-in-law, Mr. Hugh Bancroft, is
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identified with these several publications and especially looks after "Barron's Weekly"; the business manager is Mr. Guy Bancroft, the managing editor is Mr. H. M. Cole, and his assistants are Mr. B. F. Grif- fin and Mr. F. M. Simmons.
A Journal Unique-What shall be said of a newspaper which announces its purpose to be "to injure no man but to bless all mankind," a paper in whose pages countless persons are saved from peril, but rarely does anybody die; a paper which eschews all mention of vice, scandal and crime; which recognizes the tremendous fact of a World War, but makes only occasional allusions to the enormous sacrifices of human life which that vast conflict cost mankind ; a paper which censors its adver- tising columns so severely that it often requires advertisers to present credentials as well as cash ?
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