Genius
Just as the beet and the cane furnish the raw material for candy, so the raw material of the small-town newspaper is names, names, names. The more local names the local editor can cram into his columns, the more money he makes. The well known sources of this raw material are "social functions," "church and club activities," departures from and returns to town, etc. Every local editor draws upon them as fast as typewriters can dig.
But the man who discovers a new source of names is a genius. He appeared a few weeks ago--Editor W. B. Miller of the Sumner (Ill.) Press. He put a little ad in his paper:
"How many children will read this little ad this week? We want you to tell the Press man the date of your birthday. He has a little scheme in mind that will please you. Bring in your birthday dates."
One hundred and eight children "mobbed" his office. Next day he printed the list of callers with this comment:
"Our idea was that the big folks get their names in the paper a good deal, and it is high time the little folks were treated the same. We'll bet there's names in here that have never before been in print.
"Another part of the idea was that if we would publish their birthday dates, it might be read by the proper parties, maybe remembered, and might be the cause of some presents along about birthday time."
After that, could any family fail to read the Sumner Press? Could any advertiser doubt that it would be read by the people of Sumner?
Frank Munsey
Frank A. Munsey was dining at the Ritz, his Manhattan home. It had been a satisfactory day. In the morning at the office of the Sun he had given a few directions to his trusty group of executives. The afternoon he had passed at his 1,000-acre estate on Long Island. He never felt better, he said. And others, as the year neared its end, were speaking of the phenomenal Sun profits--at least $1,000,000. Suddenly, at dinner, he became ill. Within a few hours, on the advice of Drs. Frank R. Oastler and Samuel W. Lambert, he was moved to the Lenox Hill Hospital. There was an operation for appendicitis, and a few days later, a minor operation. Then, in the small hours of the Tuesday before Christmas his grandniece and five business lieutenants gathered at the bedside of an unconscious man, 71 years old, and began the vigil which Death ended at dawn.
Mr. Munsey forbade smoking in all his newspaper offices. Reporters would have preferred to be denied almost any other implement of their craft, but he paid them well and they were content to bribe elevator boys to warn them of the Big Chief's approach. Occasionally, however, when they were forced to lavatories for their smoke, they would refer unpleasantly to the Mohican Chain Stores, and among younger men the impression got about that Frank A. Munsey was the world's greatest grocery man, and a newspaper man only by grace of tin cans. Had they never heard the big story, as romantic and as true a tale as was ever told?
Frank Andrew Munsey came to New York with $40, he worked there 40 odd years, he had 40 failures, he made 40 million dollars.* The most astounding part of his career was in recent years when he changed the map of newspaperdom with Napoleonic versatility. But the story, the big story, the story he himself told best, is the story of that $40.
With $40, he came to New York in 1882. He came also with a suitcase full of writings, including some by Horatio Alger, and an idea for a juvenile magazine. He came with a promise from a banker in Maine--the 28 years since his birth had passed in that State--that he could have $2,500 on call for the publication of his juvenile. A Maine boy who had preceded Munsey to Manhattan had promised another $1,000. The promised capital was called for, but was deaf. Dismayed, Munsey took his idea to a publisher and with unexpected suddenness, The Golden Argosy appeared in weekly issues. Five months later the publisher failed, owing Munsey $1,000 salary. Staggered, Munsey took the magazine in lieu of salary, although the magazine already owed more money than it was worth. Somehow $300 was borrowed, issues were brought out, and Munsey, working 18 hours a day, produced his classic 6,000-word serial, "Afloat in a Great City." As Munsey told the story: "I wanted something to advertise and I put my faith to the test to the extent of ten thousand dollars."
Always in debt, he kept on advertising as subscriptions rolled in. Finally after a four years' struggle "with scarcely a night at the theatre," the magazine was netting $100 a week. He bought everything--paper, printing, salaries--"on time," and collected $95,000 to advertise some more. Munsey told it later: "The very audacity of it all gave me credit, and more and more credit all the while. But merciful heavens, how the bills fell due! The cry from in town and out of town, from men on the road and from all the four corners of the earth, and in 1,000 voices, was money, money, money! We were living over a powder mine, and every minute brought a new sensation, brought a dozen of them, brought one hot after another.
"Five years of poverty, five years of awful struggle, and now the earth was mine--rich at last, richer than I had ever dreamed of being--$1,000 a week net, and every week adding to it by leaps and bounds--$50,000 a year and all mine--next year $60,000, then $70,000 and $100,000--$1,000,000, maybe--great heavens, and it was real!
"Then the powder mine, the dynamite, the explosion, failure, disgrace, a fortune swept away, and all for the want of ready money to carry on the work. Gambling? No, never for a minute. It was sound to the centre; right to the rim. And I had it in my hand, on the very tips of my fingers--knew every move in the game--the bounding forward of the circulation proved it, the gold coming in proved it.
"But the money to work it out, thousands of dollars every day--where could I get it? How could I get it? And it meant riches, power, position, the world, the great big world!"
Just as the Argosy was about to go under, Munsey started Munsey's Magazine. That too was a failure until, in the nick of time, he cut the price of it (a monthly) to 10-c-, and that started something in U. S. journalism. A few more years of the mad wheel and his income was $700,000--all this before the grocery episode, all this from the writing and publishing "game." Of his Maine boyhood he said:
"It was the future I wanted, a future in the big world, where things are done in a big way. . . . The four walls of a telegraph office were to me as a cage to a tiger yearning for the boundless freedom of the jungle."
In 1890, at the height of the Argosy's success, Mr. Munsey first fingered the newspaper business by starting a tabloid, the New York Daily Continent. It died quickly and was unceremoniously buried. The day of tabloids was not yet. Ten years later Mr. Munsey--now rich by reason of chain groceries and fortunate buying of U. S. Steel Common besides prosperous publishing--bought the Washington Times, and here began an unsuccessful period of experimentation. As Mr. Munsey expressed his dream:
"Think of the possibilities involved in a chain of 500 newspapers under a single control! Such a faculty could be so maintained as no college could support; the greatest authors, artists, engineers, essayists and statesmen could write with authority on every question of importance, each of 500 papers getting the benefit of these great minds, while maintaining its individuality on purely local matters.
"There could be a $100,000 or $200,000-a-year man at the head of the editorial force and another God-made genius in charge of the business end. Such economies would be effected that the highest salaries would be mere details of the business, and the product of the combined genius of the men in control would be the most uplifting force the world has ever known."
This period saw the purchase and sale or failure of the old New York Daily News, the Boston Journal, the Baltimore News,** the Philadelphia Evening Times, the New York Press, the Washington Times./- Then in 1916 with his purchase of the Sun and the Evening Sun,
Mr. Munsey entered his decade of magnificence. In this decade he also bought the New York Herald/-/- the New York Telegram, the Evening Mail, the New York Globe. When he died he owned only the Sun (now in the evening field) and the Telegram, which he had made worth all the rest put together.
In the midst of the "big world" he died. His body lay in state in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. A bishop read the last service.
In Chicago
Leather-faced journalists in the antique city-room of the Chicago Daily News eyed one another: "How much longer do we work for the Congregational Church?" A few blocks down the Loop, John J. Mitchell, able Chicago banker had been spending a large part of his working days for two months deciding how best to rid himself of one of the greatest evening newspapers in the world. To the leather-faces and to himself Banker Mitchell said Merry Christmas as follows:
Illinois Merchants Trust Company, as executor of the last will and testament of Victor F. Lawson, announces the sale of the Chicago Daily News to Walter Strong and his associates, today.
We feel that the public will recognize that through this disposition the independence and high ideals which actuated Mr. Lawson in the conduct of the Daily News will be continued by the purchasers. (Signed) John J. Mitchell,
President.
Victor Lawson, builder of the Chicago Daily News, who died last August, was very different from Frank A. Munsey; but they were alike in being heirless. Mr. Munsey never married. Mr. Lawson's wife, childless, became an eccentric recluse. Both men realized the difficulty of passing on titanic newspaper properties. Mr. Munsey consulted friends. Mr. Lawson consulted nobody. Soon after his funeral, when the will was taken out of Mr. Lawson's vault, at the Illinois Merchants Trust Co., it was found that the Bank had been made trustee of the Daily News, which it was to run in the interests of charities and Congregational Church activities. Mr. Lawson, like many Scandinavians, was deeply religious--in this differing from Mr. Munsey, who was frankly worldly. But a bank cannot run a newspaper, and Banker Mitchell had no intention of doing so. Bids came in fast. Financial groups wanted to turn a penny in resale of stock to the public. Political groups, barely disguised, made paper bids. William R. Hearst, it is believed, made suggestions. It was the business duty of the bank as trustee to get all the money it could. It was the public duty of the bank to put it in good hands. Finally Walter Strong, nephew of Victor Lawson, assembled a total of $6,000,000 from various rich men of the city and put in a bid for upwards of $14,000,000. Done. Debenture bonds amounting to $8,000,000 will be floated by Halsey, Stuart & Co. and Kissel, Kinnicutt & Co. Subscribers to the $6,000,000, headed by Mr. Strong, include Reuben H. Donnelley, J. V. Farwell II, Thomas D. Jones, Frank O. Lowden, Joseph E. Otis, James A. Patten, George F. Porter, Julius Rosenwald, Harold Swift, Lucius Teter. Mr. Strong, long active in the business, now controls. So highly is he regarded that when a Chicagoan heard casually at a dinner party that Mr. Strong might not get the paper, he said: "I'll put in half a million to see Strong get it."
A Great Journalist
WILLIAM T. STEAD--Frederic Whyte--Houghton, Mifflin ($10). The "new journalism," unsatisfied with the narration of news, undertook the creation of news, a phenomenon that has profoundly influenced our times. Regarded from that point of view, these volumes deserve a place in any institutional library. William T. Stead was born (1849) a few years after Victoria's coronation; he went down on the Titanic (1912). All of the Victorian era he saw; part of it he was.
Inadequately educated, culturally deficient, but physically and mentally powerful and throughout life regarding himself as under the explicit guidance of the Almighty, he was the editor of a provincial newspaper at 22 and in correspondence with the crowned heads and elder statesmen of Europe. At 34 he had become editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, vitalizing the "new journalism." Stead's career from first to last was a series of journalistic coups. The first, The Truth about the Navy, led to "little less than the renaissance of British sea power." Before the coup parliament was told the navy "wouldn't know what to do with $2,000,000"; after the coup parliament learned that "three and a half million above the ordinary estimates of the year was an imperative need." From first to last--a series of coups. Gordon's mission to Khartoum was one. The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon was another. It landed him in jail. In prison he initiated a coup--the reform of the Established Church--a congenial occupation for a criminal working out his sentence in gaol," he wrote to Cardinal Manning.
His advocacy of world peace was a coup. The first great peace conference, called by the Tsar, owned its primary success in part to his efforts. With Cecil Rhodes he planned a worldwide English-speaking confederation. "The fateful pigheadedness of George III" was the starting-point of their discussions, and Rhodes assented to Stead's suggestion of the annexation of Britain to the U. S. "For the sake of that great need," said Rhodes, "let us all join the Republic." At one time Rhodes intended to leave his fortune in trust to Baron Rothschild and Stead to bring about the English-speaking confederation. The fortune was bequeathed otherwise and Stead's name did not appear in the will--"because of his extraordinary eccentricity." "Brother-Boers" and "spooks" constituted the eccentricity, for Stead was a sincere spiritualist; his automatic writing was inexplicable except to himself. His opposition to the Boer war was a coup, continued after Britain was in arms.
His crusade against Congo slavery made the very name of Leopold of Belgium a stench in the nostrils of Christendom. So it went on. In the Pall Mall Gazette and in the Review of Reviews (which he founded) one coup followed another, dazzling and bedeviling his countrymen. If Christ Came to Chicago was his coup on this side of the water. The "Men and Religion" movement impelled his last voyage. There was a prospect of a coup! He was singularly the product of the Victorian era. He saw the whole circus. Sometimes he had a ticket; more often he crawled under the canvas; but invariably he contrived to be a part of the act--horseback, elephant or trapeze. Wherever he was the sawdust was kicked up and in the clouds of it he was not always distinguishable from the clowns.
* This paraphrase of an Arthur Brisbane remark is almost literally true.
**Sold to an associate, Stuart Olivier, repurchased, and in 1923 resold to W. R. Hearst.
/- "I sold it because Arthur Brisbane paid me a bigger price than it was worth to me."
/-/-Sold to Ogden M. Reid, to combine with the Tribune, in accordance with Mr. Munsey's ideas of consolidation.