USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Metropolitan Boston; a modern history; Volume II > Part 29
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
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
Such a newspaper is the "Christian Science Monitor." Really it is not a newspaper at all in any accepted sense of the term. It is a maga- zine published every day. It describes itself as an "international daily," and international it truly is, printing large amounts of foreign corre- spondence and circulating not only throughout the United States but in foreign countries scattered all over the globe. It is unique. It is not local. It cannot be "timely" in the reportorial sense. Its editors and correspondents must write not only for the next morning in Boston, but for next week in England and for next month in Australia. The "Moni- tor" is the organ of Christian Science. It happens to be published in Boston because the "Mother Church" of the Science movement is here. It is administered by the church authorities, yet it is conducted by prac- tical newspaper men. It is independent in politics. It is serene, opti- mistic, sincerely desirous of improving the quality of human character and conduct. Its original platform included planks to the effect that it would aim to spread not fear but confidence, that it would print not destructive but constructive news, that it would not "play up" the crim- inal and the grotesque. Its correspondents pay little or no attention to disasters or sensational happenings. Years ago it refrained from publi- cation of the long list of victims of the sinking of the "Titanic," but it gave some attention to the Sacco-Vanzetti case, and reported the attempted assassination of Mussolini. Some years since the Palm Beach fire and the Middle-West tornado occurred on the same day. The "Moni- tor" ignored the former, but covered the latter with special stress on relief work. A typical newspaper headline might have read-"Tornado Area Like War Zone." The "Monitor's" read: "Tornado Relief Calls Answered." Naturally the newsstand and street sales are small. But the postage bills are very large for nine-tenths of the circulation is dis- tributed by mail. There are three editions every day, a Pacific Edition, a Central Edition, and an Atlantic Edition.
582
METROPOLITAN BOSTON
Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy gave to the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, the business of the Christian Science Publishing Society, and with the gift went a grant of trusteeship, with a deed of trust containing rules for the guidance of the trustees. The several documents involved in the arrangement seem to have been susceptible of more than a single interpretation. At any rate there developed a difference of opinion some years ago between the directors of the church and the trustees of the publishing society as to the control of the society, which in the end was determined in the courts by a decision which both sides accepted in good spirit. The case for some time affected seriously the circulation of the "Monitor." The post office statement for 1920 designated a circulation of almost 121,000, for 1922 of only 21,000. But the next year's sworn state- ment made the total 53,000, and the figures for May, 1927, show an aver- age net paid circulation of near 118,000 a day. Mr. Archibald Mclellan served as editor from the beginning until 1914. Mr. Frederick Dixon, an English journalist of distinction, succeeded him, and in turn he was fol- lowed in 1922 by Mr. Willis J. Abbot, a well-known American veteran. On February 1, 1927, the "Monitor" changed from the policy of a "one- man editorship" to an editorial board of four members, equal in responsi- bility, which decides all editorial questions and carries out the policies of the Christian Science Board of Directors respecting the paper as a whole. The members of this board are: Mr. Abbot, contributing editor; Roland R. Harrison, executive editor ; Charles E. Heitman, publishing company manager; and Frank L. Perrin, chief editorial writer. The paper was issued in the evening from November 25, 1908, to August 8, 1918; then in the morning until February 13, 1922, when it returned again to afternoon publication.
On March 21, 1904, Governor John L. Bates, while in attendance upon a meeting of business men in East Boston, pressed an electric button, and instantly the presses began to whirl in a new newspaper plant a mile away in downtown Boston. The event signalized the entrance of Wil- liam Randolph Hearst into the Boston field. The man whose newspaper enterprises cover the continent established the "Boston American" as an evening daily with a Sunday morning edition, with offices at 82 Summer Street. Not until the acquisition of the "Record" in 1921 did the "Ameri- can" own an Associated Press franchise. An old "Pulitzer man," Foster Coates, was the first editor. The story of "Hearst in Boston" has been almost steadily a record of expansion. The general policies of the Hearst papers everywhere, with some discrepancies and variations, have marked the conduct of the Boston group of publications. Late in November, 1917, the Hearst interests purchased the "Boston Daily Advertiser" and with it a Sunday "A. P." franchise, and a Sunday edition was run for only two weeks when it was merged with the "Sunday American." For
583
THE PRESS
a year the title of the Sunday issue combined the two names, and then the paper appeared as the "Advertiser" alone and so has continued. The "Daily Advertiser" at the time of the change of ownership was a paper of standard size, devoted mainly to finance and business news. It was restricted largely to those fields by the new owners until the spring of 1918, when it was expanded by the addition of sufficient news matter to fill the front and back pages, and the other fourteen pages were largely given over to commercial topics with special attention to textile subjects and other interests of first importance in New England. The "Record" had been published as a tabloid from May I to August 1, 1921, from 309 Washington Street. Its "A. P." franchise was transferred to the "Ameri- can," and the "Advertiser," as a tabloid, was continued as a morning paper and issued from the "Record" plant because of the press conveni- ences there available; it was after three years that a transfer was made to the general headquarters of the Hearst papers which now is at 5 Win- throp Square. The "Advertiser," as a tabloid morning paper, issues pre- dated editions the evening before, and the Sunday edition also is on sale early on Saturday night.
The Hearst papers have been manned and officered by a large corps of men who have been shifted about from time to time among the several publications. In the roster appear the names of William P. Anderson, John L. Eddy, Arthur L. Clarke, James W. Reardon, Samuel C. Cham- berlain, L. Rae Murdock, Robert C. McCabe, Walter L. Howie, Frederick L. Southwick, Lewis H. Taplinger, T. W. Ranck, Wayne P. Randall- these as editors, and William B. Fairfield, Richard J. Farrelly, Russell R. Whitman, William H. Johnson, John D. Bogart, Edward A. Westfall, Edgar D. Shaw, Barrett Andrews, and Kendall B. Cressy-as publishers. The present editor of the "American" is Edward R. Mahoney, John B. Fitzpatrick edits the "Advertiser," and John K. Gowen, Jr., the "Sunday Advertiser." In March, 1927, Colonel Frank A. Knox, editor of the "Manchester [New Hampshire] Union-Leader," came to Boston to assume the new office of regional director of the Hearst publications, and he is the present publisher of the "American."
Several newspapers which are no longer in existence must now be briefly noted. Back in the early 1880's a bright and well-printed paper took its place in the journalistic firmament as the "Boston Evening Star." The original publishers were McCartney & Company, and later William A. Simmons, who had been Collector of Customs from 1874 to 1878, assumed, the responsibility for it. It was local in scope and fairly popu- lar for a while, but the "Star" ceased to twinkle after about three vears.
A newspaper issued from the plant of the "Traveler," at 76 Summer Street, on October 25, 1907, contained this announcement :
With this issue the "Tribune" ceases publication. It quits the field after an exist- ence of 297 days.
584
METROPOLITAN BOSTON
No explanations were offered. Yet this publication had claimed the support of the public from the beginning of that year as "a financial paper devoted to the interests of the Investors of America." Its editorial page carried the device of a knight, mounted, with lance poised, and carrying a shield inscribed, "A square deal for investors." All its editorials were on financial topics. Scattered about its pages were little homilies, in Italic type, "boxed," signed "C. F. K." One contained this phrase: "When I go to take my apportioned place in the City of Eternal Silence." These characteristics were continued throughout the brief existence of this daily. Several times this passage was printed :
It is my fixed unalterable purpose to make of the "Boston Daily Tribune" a power for good in the land. As a national financial daily newspaper it will always be found defending all things that are Right in the field of finance and battling against all things that are Wrong. It is not the organ of any business, nor the organ of any man or cor- poration. It is only a part of my business insofar as it stands for the principles that I stand for-believes in the financial gospel that I believe in-and will always, in season and out of season, proclaim these principles loudly and boldly, without fear and without favor. -C. F. K.
"C. F. K." was Cardenio F. King. He was the owner and publisher and his purpose was to exploit and sell certain stocks. He maintained business offices in the Journal Building. One of his specialties was Douglas Copper. The paper ran usually eight pages, carried little but his own advertising, and sold at three cents. The assertion that it filled "an imperative demand for a national financial newspaper" was not verified, and the dates implied above, January I to October 25, 1907, spanned its somewhat hectic career. Even its count of the days of its life in the last issue seems to have been erroneous.
Almost as short was the life of the "Boston Daily Standard," whose files start with an issue for Thursday, March 28, 1895, and end with July II, 1896, spanning an existence of fifteen months and two weeks. The publisher was the Boston Daily Publishing Company, the editor and general manager was A. R. Calhoun, and the place of publication was 39 Franklin Street. It was a small paper with editions of eight or ten pages, seven columns to the page. Its one justification was maintained to be its advocacy of the policies of the American Protective Association. It was excessively "patriotic." It exploited the "little red schoolhouse." It printed many pages respecting the Knights Templar. It called for a "Free Italy," a "Liberated Ireland," and demanded "justice for Cuba." Its small initial capital of $150,000 had been subscribed in $10 shares. A receivership wound up its affairs.
Most recent of the many ventures which have ended in disaster was that by Frederick W. Enright, who had for several years conducted a daily in Lynn. He entered the larger field with the "Boston Telegram"
585
THE PRESS
on March 16, 1921, published at 91 Portland Street. Its last issue came from the press on November 6, 1926. Yet in 1924 it had announced a circulation of 149,131. The paper represented the extremes of sensa- tionalism and many expedients were tried to prevent the cessation of publication.
Thus Boston today has these morning papers, arranged alphabetically -the "Advertiser," the "Globe," the "Herald," the "Post," and these eve- ning papers-the "American," the "Globe," the "Monitor," the "Tran- script," and the "Traveler;" also these Sunday editions-the "Adver- tiser," the "Globe," the "Herald," and the "Post."
CHAPTER XI. THE INDUSTRIES OF METROPOLITAN BOSTON. By Orra L. Stone, General Manager, Associated Industries of Massachusetts.
Environment and economic demand conspired to establish industries in Boston, on the Atlantic seaboard, in the early days of New England. Here was the potential power, here the bulk of the people, here such industrial genius as had come across the seas from old England, and here the economic necessity for industrial production.
The five primary factors attending the early development of Metro- politan Boston's industrial life were :
I. Available water power that met the requirements of that period.
2. The inventive genius and skill of its mechanics.
3. The commercial resourcefulness of its population.
4. The development of shipping due to the fact that in the earlier years of the settlement of the Atlantic seaboard, the population was almost exclusively dependent upon fisheries and overseas trade, with the exception of such agricultural pursuits as were then carried on.
5. The accumulation of capital by naturally thrifty people, who were forced to economize in order to live.
Not one of these factors has disappeared, except as the native water powers which, in the early days included the Mystic, the Charles, the Neponset and the Saugus rivers, have been supplanted by the more general employment of steam power produced from coal, or as they are being superseded by hydro-electric energy and the use of fuel oil.
The inventive genius and skill of Boston mechanics and craftsmen are still our peculiar assets, as will be emphasized in the development of this chapter.
This statement is made not because of any provincial, sentimental or sectional pride the author holds for Boston, or New England, but because it was repeatedly emphasized during the World War that contracts for war products originally awarded to concerns in the Middle West and elsewhere, calling for the greatest precision and accuracy, had to be can- celled, and transferred to local concerns whose employees were equipped by reason of superior skill to turn out the intricate devices required.
Boston still possesses a preëminence in the production of intricate tools, machines and mechanical devices, which is but natural when one considers that, for generation after generation, sons have succeeded fathers in the skilled mechanical trades, and have inherited the crafts- manship which, since the very beginnings of American industry, has
588
METROPOLITAN BOSTON
distinguished its mechanical production and given it a world market along certain lines that neither time nor the developments made by com- petitors located in other parts of the United States have been able to appropriate to themselves.
The third factor, the commercial resourcefulness of its people, has not been seriously impaired by the industrial development of the West and South. Witness the indisputable fact that ninety-nine per cent. of all the hides used in the leather and shoe industries are traded in within a narrow circle of commercial houses of not more than a square mile of area in the heart of the commercial center of Boston.
No other city in the United States draws to it the shoe buyers of the United States as does Boston. No other city annually conducts shoe expositions such as are held yearly in Mechanics Hall, Boston.
Even as Liverpool is the center of the wheat market of the entire world, so is Boston the seat of the wool market of the United States, despite the fact that less than one per cent. of the wool produced in this country is raised within the confines of New England.
Boston always has been and will continue to be the leading wool market of the United States. For a short period, during the war it was the leading wool market of the entire world, exceeding even London in the volume handled. The domestic receipts of 1922-1924 represented approximately seventy-five per cent. of the total clip of the United States during these three years.
The fourth factor, the development of shipping, is. experiencing a renaissance in Boston at this very moment, due in a large measure to the opening of the Panama Canal, which water artery is working to the economic advantage of this section of the country.
We do not yet fully appreciate the transformation in traffic relations between North America and the Orient, between this section and the west coast of South America, and between the Atlantic seaboard and the Pacific Coast, which has been effected by the opening of the Panama Canal. That agency of commerce, now only a dozen years old, has pro- foundly altered the national transportation structure.
Few people are aware that the tonnage now passing through the Panama Canal exceeds that annually shipped through the Suez Canal.
The influence of Panama Canal traffic penetrates from the Atlantic States alnost to the Mississippi River, and from Pacific Coast ports to the Rockies. It has opened vast new American markets to the manu- facturers of Boston, and of New England, as well as to the producers of California, the Columbia River Valley, and Puget Sound.
When it was opened in 1914, direct steamship service between coast and coast made possible ocean rates that are lower than transcontinental rail rates, and lower even than rail rates from the Middle West to the
589
THE INDUSTRIES OF METROPOLITAN BOSTON
Pacific Coast. The transcontinental roads attempted to meet these new rates, but a decision of the Interstate Commerce Commission, rendered in 1917, put a quietus on the effort. Then came the World War, which temporarily halted the development of Panama Canal traffic, but since the war there has been an enormous increase in tonnage through the Canal.
Enormous areas, where new possibilities are offered for the consump- tion of Boston and New England-made goods have been opened by this water artery, and these new domestic markets are in many cases being rapidly seized by astute and far-seeing industrialists.
Before the Panama Canal existed, Boston merchants brought wool from Australian ports around the treacherous Cape of Good Hope, or through the Straits of Magellan, but now in a fraction of the time required by the use of the longer and more perilous routes the freighters traverse the Canal to the great advantage of the Boston wool market. This important transportation agency has also provided an important feeder for the wool raised in the Far West and in the Pacific Coast States, and the rise of several Panama Canal routes from the port' of Boston is due in no small measure to the wool traffic handled by them.
From the very beginnings of American industry, foreign trade has been a tradition in Boston, for here it was that the colonists began their overseas merchandising by exchanging furs and other natural products for the finished goods from the mother country which were so necessary in the earlier years of the settlement of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
From the first adventures of local capital in the early days of its trad- ing with the West Indies up to today, there have been successive rises and declines in its shipping, due to the variety of causes. The Napoleonic wars gave this section opportunity for its greatest development in trading on the seven seas, and our ships were observed in every port of the world. The decline of foreign trade, following the War of 1812, diverted Boston capital from the overseas trade to the factories which sprung up on every stream in Massachusetts. The discovery of gold in California in 1849 revived shipbuilding and the yards of Donald McKay, Samuel Hall, Briggs Bros., James O. Curtis, and a dozen others turned out between 1850 and 1865 the greatest galaxy of clipper ships the world has ever witnessed on the seas.
Boston is as favorably located for trade with South America as it is with respect to trade with Europe. Her manufacturers have not lost sight of the fact that there are twenty Latin-American countries to the south, with sixteen per cent. of the entire land area of the entire world within their domains, and populated by ninety-six million persons, or six per cent. of the entire population of the world, and with room for countless millions more, which today are only in the economic stage of raw-material production.
590
METROPOLITAN BOSTON
Their principal needs are finished goods, manufactured articles, gar- ments, tools, machines, specialties, and the like.
Boston is at their very doors. Geographically, the city is the nearest Atlantic port to the west coast of South America.
Even if the observations are true of those versed in foreign trade to the effect that the currents of world trade are shifting, and that even stabilization in Europe will cause that section of the world to figure less in the years to come as a customer of the United States than in the immediate past, Boston manufacturers can look with complacency upon such a result because they realize they have but scratched the surface of a potential market to the south which holds almost limitless possibilities for their products.
Coupled with the opportunities in Latin-America are those of Canada, Asia, Oceania and the miscellaneous nations of the world.
As to the fifth factor, the accumulation of capital, Bostonians have invariably from the earliest times noted the potent after-effects of the investment of capital outside of the six New England States. In recent years her capitalists have made heavy and substantial investments in Latin-American countries from Cuba to Argentina, due largely to the fact that the European nations which had heretofore financed these republics were forced out of the field because of their own adverse fiscal situation. These loans are serving to create closer commercial relations between Boston and the Latin-American countries, as is evidenced by the operation of a South American branch by our biggest local financial institution. Boston is the only city in the United States, outside of New York, operating a bank with a foreign branch. It will require many, many years for other sections of the country to accumulate as much capital from their industrial operations as Boston is able to place in channels leading to an immediate development of her foreign trade.
Since the World War Boston has been dealing in greater volume with Argentina, Brazil and Chile than previously and more of her manu- factured products are being sent to these and to other South American countries in exchange for the wool, hides, raw materials and foodstuffs required in this section of the country.
That Metropolitan Boston manufacturers are somewhat dependent on foreign markets is not denied. The days when this section supplied most of the shoes worn in the Western States and most of the cotton shirts used in the Southern States have passed, but the fortunate thing is that Boston potentially has the entire world as a market for her products.
Her geographical position is such that she never need fear that this market will be usurped. Situated as she is on the Atlantic seaboard, she can ship to the world markets of Europe at less cost than can any com- petitor in the Middle or Far West. To these foreign markets her pro-
591
THE INDUSTRIES OF METROPOLITAN BOSTON
gressive manufacturers have been turning with renewed energy since the World War. When foreign trade meant to her industrialists only an expedient for disposing of surplus production that home consumption could not take care of, she made very little permanent headway in her commercial relations with countries abroad.
But her manufacturers who are producing goods dependent upon par- ticular markets abroad are now specializing and are building up permanent business with countries whose peoples demand and require styles in prod- ucts different from those desired by the consumers in the United States.
Her main asset in developing this foreign trade is to aim at quality rather than cheapness.
The piers of Boston Harbor are but eight miles from the open sea ; three main channels provide safe, expeditious and convenient approach to docks with a depth of from thirty to forty feet at mean low water. Two hundred miles nearer Liverpool than is New York, and four hundred miles nearer than either Baltimore or Philadelphia, this geographical advantage, enhanced by the notable ease of entrance and departure over a main channel approximately a quarter of a mile in width, affords a saving of from one to two days in crossing the Atlantic.
Possessing one hundred and forty-one linear miles of water front and ample anchorage spaces, the port of Boston has more than forty miles of berthing space, with some of the finest piers in the world, all closely linked with rail connections, thus making possible the direct handling of merchandise from car to ship and vice versa. With no harbor dues, with wharfage charges on local shipments rated as moderate, and with free wharfage on ocean freight, providing there is a rail haul by the New England transportation systems, her facilities are unrivalled by any American port.
Locating a plant at Somerville, with an initial expenditure of $4,000,- 000, and the employment at the outset of 2500 hands, the Ford Motor Company of Detroit has evidenced its belief in the future industrial possibilities of Greater Boston, while the development by the Terminal Wharf & Railroad Warehouse Company, at an initial cost of $2,000,000 of a modern lumber terminal on land along the Mystic River, between Dewey Beach and the plant of the Revere Sugar Refinery, permitting of five steamship berths, five acres of macadamized streets, the installation of giant power cranes, and the laying of several miles of railroad track on the twenty acres occupied, cannot but fail to develop not only the better and more economical distribution of the vast lumber resources and lumber products coming from the West Coast and from Finland, to the Boston seaboard, but will at the same time aid in encouraging indus- tries to locate plants adjacent to this project.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.