USA > Wisconsin > Milwaukee County > Milwaukee > History of Milwaukee, city and county, Volume I > Part 70
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actually been arranged for and then P. V. Denster, a candidate for Congress, suddenly began the publication of a campaign sheet bearing the name, The Milwaukee Journal. This cansed Mr. Seripps to change his mind. Mr. Nie- man, thongh disappointed, adhered to his plan. Within three weeks he he- came major owner and editor in chief of The Journal and transformed it from a campaign sheet to a real newspaper. A few years later-in 1890-The Journal Company was formed, with Mr. Nieman as controlling stockholder. It has published The Journal ever since, with few changes in the list of stock- holders.
For a short time the paper was issued from the old Seebote Building at 97 Mason Street, the editor having a room about ten feet square. Seant space for the composing room was found in the Seebote's mechanical department. Early in 1883 the paper was moved to 433 Broadway, where it occupied rooms in the south half of The Herold Building, the paper being printed on The Herold's press. Two years later the growth of the paper made another move neces- sary, this time to 92 Mason Street. In 1893 a third transfer was made-to the Montgomery Building at Milwaukee and Michigan streets. There The Journal was printed until 1907, when it moved into its own building on Fourth Street, which it still occupies, together with a three-story annex directly across the same street.
The Journal's first serious undertaking was to expose the reprehensible system under which interest on state funds was treated as the personal per- quisite of the state treasurer. This campaign, begun when the paper was scarcely a month old, rontinned for more than eight years. Finally, early in the administration of Governor Peck, a democrat, proceedings against the state treasurers to recover this interest were begun and in the end the Sn- preme Court of Wisconsin wholly upheld The JJournal's contention. As a result nearly $500,000 in aremmulated interest was paid into the state treas- nry and the aggregate saving that has since resulted is figured in millions. This achievement had much to do with the growing confidence in the paper. The fight begun in Wisconsin spread to other states, and now, in the various states, as well as in nearly all communities, the public enjoys the interest on its funds.
The Journal has never sworn allegiance to any political party, preferring freedom to espouse the measures and men it believed in, regardless of party. Thus, in the presidential campaign in 1884, it took up the endgels for Grover Cleveland, democrat. because it has always believed in a low tariff -a belief which has led many persons to consider it a democratie organ. In Is96. when the democrats nominated Bryan on a free silver platform, The Journal fought that party and espoused the cause of the gold standard. From that time on. it has supported candidates of this or that party. as public interests seemed to require, and never asking or accepting favors from any of them.
In June, 1919, the highest honor in American journalism came to The Journal in the award of the Pulitzer medal "for the most disinterested and meritorions public service rendered by any American newspaper" during the voar. a period that tried men's souls. This medal had been awarded only once before, to The New York Times. The resolution accompanying The
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Journal's medal declared that the award was made because of its "strong and courageous campaign for Americanism in a constituency where foreign elements made such a policy hazardons from a business point of view."
After the outbreak of the World war, when the menace of German propa- ganda beeame apparent, The Journal began a thorough and systematic ex- posure of this alien movement. From. 1915 to the entrance of the United States into the war and up to the end of the war, it carried on this campaign. It never made a statement that necessitated retraction. It laid bare the facts relating to many dangerous movements. Its campaign commanded attention throughout the country and even among other peoples. It was widely ered- ited with uncommon energy, ability and fearlessness.
In connection with the award of the Pulitzer medal, The Journal received hundreds of messages of congratulation, prominent statesmen of this and other nations adding their words of recognition. Among these were William Howard Taft, Viscount Bryce, Manrice Casenave, French high commissioner, James W. Gerard, Cyrus Il. K. Curtis, Brand Whitlock, Samuel Hopkins Adams, Albert Bushnell Hart and Baron Shaughnessy.
During the war, The Journal's whole strength went to the aid of the Government in its task of achieving victory. When peace finally came, The Journal supported earnestly the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Na- tions. It denouneed the separate peace with Germany.
In 1889 the State Legislature enacted a law, which became famous as the Bennett law, providing that not only public schools but private and parochial schools using English for instrnetion in reading, writing, arithmetic and United States history should be recognized as meeting the requirements of the school attendance law. The Journal, believing this law an interference with the rights of parents not justified by public policy and believing that instruction in English in private and parochial schools would in due time be adequately provided, urged the repeal of the law and this was effected as a result of the state election held in 1890. During the World war, however, it became known that language instruction in not a few parochial schools was detrimental both to the nation and to immigrant children and The Journal frankly admitted this weakness in its earlier campaign. It took a strong stand against instrnetion in any other language than English in graded schools, publie, private or parochial.
In state and national affairs The Journal has supported measures making for progress in accord with modern thought and conditions. It supported, for example, the movement for the direct election of United States senators and has urged provision for the election of presidents by direct. popular vote. It opposed the Wisconsin primary law, but when the electors had made their decision, it opposed subsequent efforts to repeal the law without their consent.
The Journal has advocated simple, modern, efficient, democratie and repre- sentative government. It took a leading part in the successful movement to eliminate national party labels from municipal election ballots and to ensure the election of city officials by majority vote. It has steadily supported the principle of municipal home rule. It has advanced and supported plans for social and civic betterment.
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The conservation and development of Wisconsin's natural resources has been one of The Journal's outstanding policies. A quarter of a century ago it began calling attention to the great possibilities of Northern Wisconsin. Each year it gives a silver eup to the county making the best exhibit at the state fair. It has sought to promote the settlement of agricultural lands in the northern region. but with insistence upon the protection of would-be set- tlers against unscrupulous land speculators. It bas stood for the most exten- sive utilization of Wisconsin's great water power, but with safeguards to publie interests. For ten years and longer it has unremittingly urged the need of a comprehensive system of slate forestry. believing that only through forestry practice on a wide scale can the impending danger of a timber "famine " be averted and pointing out that the application of this plan to the non-farming land in the state, some three million acres, will create natural wealth amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars, increase the state's wood- using industries and give steady employment to thousands. Its program for Wisconsin includes community forests, several large state parks and more community parks, the planting of trees along the state's highways, the pro- tection of the public's right of access to inland waters and measures to make excellent hunting and fishing permanent and to build up a huge tourist trade. Every week The Journal publishes a bulletin making suggestions and con- ta'ning information regarding the advancement of the general interests of Wisconsin and this it sends free to all newspapers and civic organizations in the state.
The Journal was a pioneer in establishing a complete road and statistical de- partment which in ten years has become accepted as a model by every like or- ganization in the country. "The Call of the Open Road, " a road book pub- lished by The Journal, is the general guide not only of the thousands of Wis- consin motorists, but of the great number of out-state visitors who tour Wis- consin each season. Over one-hundred thousand requests for road information were filled during 1921 through The Journal Tour Department. Before the Wis- consin system of highway markings was inaugurated. The Journal's marked routes were the only ones that could safely be followed. In all things per- taining to the use of roads, The Journal has closely cooperated with the State Highway Commission. It offers yearly a enp to the state's best patrolman and $1,000 in cash prizes to road patrolmen who make the best showing.
The Journal receives the Associated Press service week days and the United Press service Sundays. It maintains bureaus at New York, Philadelphia. Washington and Madison. It operates its own leased wire between Milwaukee and New York, where it is connected with The New York World, and between Milwaukee and Philadelphia, where it is connected with The Public Ledger. and in addition it receives national and foreign news over a leased wire from Washington. Its news and wire facilities enable it to publish a market and financial page each afternoon that is as complete as any similar pago printed the next morning.
Many noted men living in different parts of the world contribute regularly to the columns of The JJournal. In the list for 1921 appear the names of Wil- liam Howard Taft. Col. E. M. House, the late Count Okuma of Japan. Max-
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imilian Harden of Germany, Rene Viviani, former premier of France; Andre Tardien of Franee and George Il. Barnes, the noted labor leader of England. The Journal, in addition, has published the war narratives of James W. Gerard. Ilugh Gibson, Admiral Sims, General Ludendorff and Admiral von Tirpitz, Several noted writers are graduates of The Journal. Among them are Zona Gale and Edna Ferber.
The confidence which Milwaukee merchants have in The Journal is amply shown by the fact that it enjoys as much advertising as its two nearest com- petitors combined. The number of classified advertisements from 1913 to 1920 grew from 233,659 to 648,068. The confidence of non-Milwaukee adver- tisers is attested by the fact that, in 1919. only one evening and Sunday news- paper in the United States carried a greater amount of such advertising. The growth in volume of total advertising is significant. It increased from 5,629,- 482 lines in 1913 to 16,242.943 in 1920. In terms of columns it increased from 11,035 in 1903 to 54,511 in 1921. In building up cooperative advertising in Milwaukee The Journal has been very successful. Notable examples are those set by music dealers, jewelers and dealers in electrical devices.
An achievement that has attracted nation-wide attention is the National Food and Household Show hell in Milwaukee three years in snecession under The Journal's auspices. In 1921 the attendance reached 99,784, and there were 278 elaborate exhibits.
The Goodfellow movement was started by The Journal ten years ago as a means of promoting, during the holiday season, the idea of doing charitable aets by deeds rather than by contributions. The Journal furnishes the Good- fellows with names of needy families and they deliver their contributions in person. From five hundred to one thousand families are annually remembered in this way.
The Journal was the first Milwaukee newspaper to use typewriters in its editorial department, the first to use linotypes, to use a motor fleet for de- livering newspapers, to use homing pigeons as dispatch bearers, to use half- tones, to establish its own engraving plant, and to east its stereotype plates mechanically. It was the first to omit the useless dateline in news dispatches. It was the first to organize a Newsboys' Band. It was the first to install leased wires to bring the news of the World war.
The Journal was the first paper in Wisconsin to deliver newspapers by aeroplanes, the first to print and deliver an aeroplane edition by aeroplane. It was the first to promote an air derby in the state, which was won by a Journal plane from a field of seven planes, and the first to present a flying cirens, consisting of wireless telegraphie exhibitions, areoplane stunts, and an aeroplane race against an automobile. A Journal woman reporter holds the distinction of being the first woman ever to fly as a passenger in a race.
The number of copies of The Journal printed in 1921 exceeded forty mil- lion. The print paper used would extend 350,000 miles or fourteen times around the earth. It amounts to a carload-twenty-five tons-each week day, two carloads Sunday, 400 carloads or 10,000 tons annually.
The circulation of the daily increased from 33,504 in 1903 to 115,000 in 1921. The cirenlation of the Sunday edition increased from 45,259 in 1913 to
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90,000 in 1921. The Journal is read in more than four out of five of Milwau- kee's English-speaking homes. In uncommon measure the distribution of its circulation is in its own control. In Milwaukee city and county it main- tains thirty-six branches, with a district manager in charge of each. A thou- sand boys are engaged in home delivery and street selling and 750 dealers soll the paper in Milwaukee. Six hundred boys and as many dealers circulate it throughout the rest of the state. To ensure prompt delivery. The Journal operates presses of a total capacity of 144,000 16-page papers hourly. h Milwaukee the task of distribution requires the use of thirty-five motor trucks. These, with five other ears, are housed in The Journal's own garage.
An interesting fact is the amount of metal used any one day-if cast into one line of type it would cover a length of 5,sos feet, more than a mile. In all twenty-three linotypes and monotypes are operated. The Journal's yearly payroll approximates $1,000.000 distributed among 500 employes, exclusive of newsboys and carriers. The officers of The Journal are: President. L. W. Nieman: vice president and treasurer, Il. J. Grant : secretary, E. A. Belda. Mr. Grant is publisher.
Shortly after the signing of the armistice, The Journal decided that the interests of education in Wisconsin would be greatly furthered if a number of representative teachers of Wisconsin were to tour the European battle- fields, observe conditions growing out of the war and inform the public re- garding them. Plans were perfected by which one teacher was to be chosen. by popular vote, from each congressional distriet. No condition looking to increase in circulation or other material advantage was imposed. In all 1.434,244 votes were east and the eleven teachers thus chosen and a special representative of the paper constituted a touring party, whose entire expenses were met by The Journal. The party sailed July 3. 1920. toured England. France. Belgin, Scotland and Switzerland and returned August 17th. They enjoyed exceptional opportunities for study and received official attention and courtesies. The Journal furnished each member of the party with a set of stereopticon slides, showing ninety of the most interesting views photographed during the tour. All of the teachers have delivered illustrated lectures on what they saw and learned. some of them having spoken in publie as many as a hundred times. So far as is known it is the first enterprise of its kind con- uneted by any American newspaper.
It is probably safe to say that Lucius W. Nieman is one of the most re- markable newspaper men which the Mid-West country has thus far pro- duced. There are few men in the publication field whose career is just like his. He conceived his own project. effected its foundation, and reared it into a formidable institution. The Journal was his own idea and he organized the forces that brought it into being.
For forty years he has guided its editorial and publication policies, brav- ing the vicissitudes that attend in a greater or lesser degree all newspaper undertakings, steadily rearing his projeet into the largest and most influential daily in Wisconsin. His clear vision, untiring energy and close application to his task, won for him the snecess he has obtained. He was a young man when he began the publication of The Journal, and has now the good fortune. while
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still in the prime of manhood, to witness the results of a life's work and the magnitude of an achievement.
The Milwaukee Herold and the Daily German Language Press .- The his- tory of the German-language press in Milwaukee goes back to territorial days, Moritz Schoeffler, a printer by trade, having established The Wisconsin Banner in 1844. In the struggle for the State Constitution, an important part was played by this paper, and it was largely due to its efforts, that the first draft failed to find favor among the German voters.
The political persuasion of Sehoeffler's paper was democratie, and to offset this, repeated attempts were made by the whigs to reach the German element by setting up whig papers in that language. None of these were successful ; but when the slavery question became the most important politieal issue. there was a greatly increased activity in German newspaperdom. The so- called "Forty-eighters," Germans of high education and social standing who came to this country because their political activities during the revolutionary movements had made their stay at home uncomfortable. allied themselves with the newly organized republican party almost to a man, and founded varions publishing enterprises, most of which had but a brief and checkered career.
The anti-slavery democrats also found an organ in The Volksfreund, started by Doctor Fratny, which after the Civil war was combined with The Banner, while the German Catholies established an organ of their own, called The Seebote, of which P. V. Deuster, at a later time representative in Congress from this distriet for a number of terms, was the publisher.
Some of these papers survived until the last decade of the nineteenth cen- tury, and other German-language papers were started from time to time, some as weeklies, others as dailies : but by the end of the century, only two dailies, of really metropolitan proportions, were still in existence. These were The Milwaukee Herold and The Germania. In 1906, these also were combined, The Herold becoming merged in the other. For some years the paper was then known as The Germania-Herold, but later resumed the name of Milwaukee Herold, by which it is known today.
The weekly edition of the consolidated paper, which for a while retamed the title Germania, but a few years ago was renamed The Milwaukee America, is by all odds the most widely read German-language paper in the country. It now appears twice a week, and has subscribers in every state of the Union, besides many foreign countries of this hemisphere and the German-speaking countries of Europe. It is read especially by the farming population of Ger- man stock.
Both publications, amalgamated in this great metropolitan newspaper, had an interesting history; and in each case it was the close cooperation of two unusual men which made the paper a success.
The first number of The Herold appeared on September 21, 1861. Its editor was Bernhard Domseheke, and its polities were republican. Domscheke had previously made a number of abortive attempts to found a paper, but it required the business ability and enterprise of W. W. Coleman, who had now become his associate, to overcome the difficulties in the way.
Bernhard Domscheke was one of the German politieal exiles mentioned
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above, while Coleman, a native of Bremen, had come to this country with his parents at the age of fifteen, entered business life at once by working for a number of local firms in various branches of business, and consequently was more familiar with American ways and business methods than Domscheke could possibly be. Domscheke's journalistic abilities were recognized at once, both by the public and the leaders of the republican party.
The Herold flourished and grew until August, 1862. On that day, Editor Domscheke, the entire force of compositors, the bookkeeper and the office boy, all enlisted in the Twenty-sixth Wisconsin Regiment, entirely composed of citizens of German extraction. The result was that The Herold temporarily suspended as a daily, but continued to appear as a weekly paper.
This lasted until the spring of 1865, when the editor and his comrades returned, among the cheers of a tremendous outpouring of citizens, who re- ceived them at the station. Domschicke, in the meantime, had gone through many vicissitudes. Soon after his enlistment, he had been commissioned cap- tain of Company Il. At the battle of Gettysburg he was captured, with forty-six other soldiers of his regiment, and carried from one Confederate prison to the other, including the notorious Libby prison at Richmond. Ex- posure and semi-starvation completely shattered his health.
Hle resumed his editorial labors, however, and within a few months The Herold once more became a daily. Unfortunately, Domscheke never regained his health and died on May 5, 1869. It is claimed that his funeral procession was the longest ever seen in Milwaukee up to that time. Emil Wallber, later mayor and judge, and still living among us, prononneed the funeral oration.
Notwithstanding the death of its accomplished editor, The Herold con- tinned to grow, largely through the enterprise of W. W. Coleman. It was his far-sightedness which foreed it ahead of all competitors by the acquisition of an associated press franchise. Another impetus was given it, when on the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war, in 1870, Coleman arranged for special cable reports from Germany. By the year 1872. The Herold was an estab- lished business enterprise as well as a factor in the life of the state, and its principal owner was counted among the substantial men of the city.
The clientage of The Herold was found especially among that portion of the German-American population rather vaguely known as the liberal element. The Catholic publie generally preferred The Seebote. There was, however, then as now, a large number of people affiliated with the various Protestant churches, and especially with the Lutheran congregations. These were more or less out of sympathy with the atmosphere surrounding The Herold, and longed for an organ more distinctly representing their own views. Here was the opportunity for the second great German-language paper of Milwaukee. The Germania.
This paper was originally founded. both as a daily and a weekly. by a group of church people calling itself the Protestant Printing Association, which issued the first number of their organ in 1873. A certain member of readers were rapidly acquired, but then the enterprise stagnated, until it was taken over by George Briumder, at that time proprietor of a book store cater- ing principally to the Lutheran element. Brumder had a peculiar knack of
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seeing the reality of things and never allowing himself to be misled into be- lieving a thing because he desired it.
Consequently, after a period of observation, he decided to give up the issuing of a daily and to confine himself entirely to the weekly field. For he conceived that the daily might be desirable as far as sentiment went, but from a business point of view was but a drain on the resources of the concern. Therefore, from 1879 until 1897, The Germania was a weekly only, but as such it became an immensely profitable enterprise. In the meantime the German-language dailies of the town were engaged in the doubtful business of cutting each others' throats by over-competition.
In addition to the newspapers established before the war, Herold, Seebote. and Banner-Volksfreund, mite a number of others were started under the in- fluence of the greatly increased immigration from Germany, which set in shortly after the Franco-German war and lasted until the last decade of the century. At one time there were no less than six German dailies published in Milwaukee, of which The Herold alone was on a seenre financial footing.
Presently, all enterprises of this kind, one after the other, became amalga- mated, the financially stronger one swallowing the weaker, until but two were left: The Herold, a morning paper, and The Abendpost, appearing, as the name indicated, in the afternoon. Now came the chance for George Brumder. He purchased The Abendpost and once more issued a daily edition of The Germania, under the title of Germania-Abendpost, this time with a fair guar- antee that there would be no further drain on the resources of the weekly publication.
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