THE CITY'S LIFE - 1025 only half a dozen horses here, and that these went unshod by choice of their owners? No. But Logan was different. He was an editor who had views, and he wished to have them seen in print. The same motive impelled a youth nearly one hundred years later to work at reporting from noon to midnight for ten dollars a week when he could have had twenty for clerking in a store. Logan made no money and accomplished nothing to speak of. The Herald was edited by Eber D. Howe, to whose "Autobiography and Recollections of a Pioneer Printer" we are indebted for an interesting tale of early efforts in Cleaveland journalism. He says : "I commenced looking about for material aid to bring about my plan for putting in operation the Cleaveland Herald. With this view I went to Erie and conferred with my old friend Willes, who had the year before started the Erie Gazette. After due consultation and deliberation he agreed to remove his press and type to Cleaveland after the expira-tion of the first year in that place. So, on the nineteenth of October, 1819, without a single subscriber, the first number of the Cleaveland Herald was issued. "Some of the difficulties and perplexities now to be encountered may here be mentioned as matters of curiosity to the present generation. Our mails were then all carried on horseback. We had one mail a week from Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Columbus and Sandusky. The paper on which we printed was transported in wagons from Pittsburgh, and at some seasons the roads were in such condition that it was impossible to procure it in time for publication days. Advance payments for newspapers at that time were never thought of. In a few weeks our subscription list amounted to about three hundred, at which point it stood for about two years, with no very great variation. These subscribers were scattered all over the Western Reserve, except in the County of Trumbull. "In order to extend our circulation to its greatest capacity we were obliged to resort to measures and expedients which would appear rather ludicrous at the present day. For instance, each and every week, after the paper had been struck off, I mounted a horse, with a valise, filled with copies of the 1026 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS Herald, and distributed them at the doors of all subscribers between Cleaveland and Painesville, a distance of thirty miles, leaving a package at the latter place; and on returning diverged two miles to what is known as Kirtland Flats, where another package was left for distribution, which occupied fully two days. I frequently carried a tin horn to notify the yeomanry of the arrival of the latest news, which was gen-erally forty days from Europe and ten days from New York. This service was performed through the fall, winter and spring and through rain, snow and mud, with one additional charge of fifty cents on the subscription price ; and as the number of papers thus carried averaged about sixty, the profits may be readily calculated." Howe thus used two days out of his seven for delivering his paper, leaving but five for gathering the news, writing and printing. He lasted but two years at this Herculean task, and turned the paper over to his friend Willes, who continued it until 1832 without a rival, while the population grew to more than one thousand. The Herald is usually charged, or credited, with changing the spelling of "Cleaveland" to "Cleveland." Certainly the name was spelled with an "a" until 1832. But from April 12th to June 8, 1832, there is a break in the files of the West-ern Reserve Historical Society, and on the latter date the paper appears without the "a." In "Annals of the Early Settlers' Association" appears this statement by Hon. A. J. Williams : "Some years before his death, General A. S. Sanford, an old settler and printer in Cleveland, and one of our most valued citizens, related to me the circumstances that occasioned the dropping of the first 'a' in the original name of our city, 'Cleaveland.' The letter was not omitted in the Herald until 1832, but prior to that date, the Cleaveland Advertiser was published. General Sanford said the paper for the Advertiser was purchased from the paper mill at Cuyahoga Falls; that for one issue thereof the paper received was too small for the heading Cleaveland Advertiser, and that to use the same it became necessary to drop from the heading the 'a' from the name 'Cleaveland.' This was done, and from THE CITY'S LIFE - 1027 about that time the name of the village and of our city be-came 'Cleveland.' " Another theory is furnished by J. A. Howells, an Ashtabula editor whose father was clerk of the Ohio Senate in 1856 and there met a legislator who had been a Herald printer. This printer said that the "a" in the heading was damaged one day, and was left out thereafter because a new letter could not be obtained except from some eastern city. The printer said that J. A. Harris, editor of the Herald for many years, confirmed this version. Hon. Rufus P. Spalding', in a speech before the Early Settlers' Association in 1880, adds this comment : " 'The town was called by my name,' said the General (Moses Cleaveland), and so it was, C-l-e-a-v-e-l-a-n-d; and that was the way in which the name was spelled, written and printed until an act of piracy was committed on the word by the publisher of a newspaper, something over forty years ago, who in procuring a new headpiece for his paper found it convenient to increase the capacity of his iron frame by reducing the number of letters in the name of the city. Hence the Cleveland Advertiser, and not Moses Cleaveland, settled the orthography of the Forest City's name for all time to come. Generally this story is told in connection with the Herald rather than the Advertiser." This Advertiser was established in 1832 by Madison Kelley, who felt the urge to combat the Democratic or Jacksonian views of the Herald by the Whig doctrines. Kelley had the support of a very considerable number of citizens, who were much pleased at the first editorial by John W. Allen. The Advertiser was sold in 1834 to Canfield and Spencer and continued as a Democratic weekly until 1836, when it became a daily. In 1841 the paper was purchased by J. W. and A. N. Gray, who had come from St. Lawrence County, New York, and these brothers changed the name to Plain Dealer in 1842. The Plain Dealer might trace its ancestry back to 1827 by including in its tree an unimportant sheet called the Independent News-Letter edited by the McLain brothers and later merged into the Advertiser. By another process the Plain Dealer could be traced back to the 1028 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS advent of the Herald, in 1819, for, when the Herald suspended in 1885, it divided its assets between the Plain Dealer and the Leader. The population of Cleveland in 1830 was 1,075 ; in 1840 it was 7,648. It has been seen that in 1832 the city had OAT newspapers, about as many as a front rank modern city can successfully support, and furthermore, that the second paper was founded as a political opponent of the first. Anyone could start a newspaper in those days if he had a kitchen table, a Washington hand press and some paper and ink. Many did, for there was a veritable blizzard of newspapers in that decade. The Whig came out August 20, 1834, was published by Rice and Penniman and lasted two years. In 1836 appeared the Messenger and the Ohio City Argus, the latter circulated on the West Side by T. H. Smead and Lyman W. Hall. The Messenger died within one year. The Cleveland Daily Gazette was founded by Colonel Charles Whittlesey in 1836, but united with the Herald the next year under the name Daily Herald and Gazette. Then there was the Liberalist in 1836, lasting but a year ; the Journal in 1836 ; the Commercial Intelligencer of 1838; the Axe in 1840 ; the Agitator in 1840; and the Morning News, the Palladium of Liberty, the Eagle-Eyed News-Catcher and the Morning Mercury in 1841. So many newspapers were started in this period and died so soon after birth that their names need not all be listed. Those given show the amazing appeal that the field of journalism had, and how easy it was to raise capital for such ventures. It may not be concluded that the backers of these papers were so lacking in business vision as to believe they were engaging in a profitable undertaking, in view of the small population and the high mortality rate of similar enterprises, but rather that each editor and his supporters were fired with zeal for some great Cause, usually political, hoping against evidence to the contrary that the citizenry would flock to its support. No adequate reason for the existence of any of these early newspapers is manifest, with the possible exception of the Herald. Their counterparts may be found today in some iso- THE CITY'S LIFE - 1029 lated sections of the country, although these are rapidly disappearing with the advance of transportation facilities that bring the newspapers of larger cities to the rural villages. Since there were no great news-gathering syndicates, with branches in every spot on the inhabited globe, as there are now, the pioneer editor could not attempt to supply his readers with an assortment of daily world news, displayed in rela-tive importance. Such foreign news as he printed represented not a selection of such news, but what he could get. Thus his "lead story" of the day might have been the death of a Buffalo doctor, whereas on the same day war might have been declared between Germany and France. Therefore the paper could not have been a fair representation of the daily world happenings. The weekly paper did better on its local news, but even there the best it could do was to set forth in print what everyone knew already. These pioneers did their best according to their facilities and according to their lights, but it must be admitted in all fairness that their lights burned dim. Untrained, they were literally offensive. They showed little or no effort to fulfil their first obligation—to supply their readers with all the news, displayed in its relative interest and importance. They were pamphleteers first, newspapermen incidentally. They cloaked their real purpose and bred public distrust for news columns, a distrust which persisted against the franker journals of later days. James H. Kennedy, himself a newspaperman of wide experience, has this to say in his "History of Cleveland" : "The newspapers of Cleveland did not wait for the dawn of the city's centennial year to show that they were keeping step with the music of progress, nor for the advent of Greater Cleveland, in which to give evidence that they were abreast with modern methods. Perhaps it would be just to say that no one agency has done as much for the encouragement of enterprise, and the advertisement of Cleveland's claims be-fore the world at large, as her local press. "In the pages preceding, mention was made of the early ventures in the newspaper line. That record ended in, or near, 1840. To attempt to carry it forward, in a complete- 1030 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS ness of detail, through the half-century and more that lies between that date and this, would be as mournful as reading the inscriptions in a cemetery, and about as fruitful of results. Like all cities that have passed through experiences worthy of mention, Cleveland has seen her scores and scores of newspaper ventures spring up, as in a night, and die with the same ease and expedition. There are few things more easily done than to start a newspaper ; there are few things more difficult than to keep it going." This tombstone reading is "fruitful of results" in one respect, at least. Some of the titles confirm the propagandist purposes, open and hidden, that prompted the efforts : Second Adventist, Ohio American, Declaration of Independence, Weekly Times, Reserve Battery, Spirit of Freedom, Temple of Honor, Spirit of the Lakes, Family Visitor, Cleveland Commercial, Harpoon, Golden Rule, Forest City, True Democrat, Annals of Science, Commercial Gazette, Germania, Spiritual Universe, Daily Review, Buckeye Democrat, Wool Growers' Journal, Agitator, Dodge's Literary Museum, Vanguard, Daily Dispatch, Gleaner, Brainard's Musical World, Analyst, Literary Museum, Temperance Era, Ohio Spiritualist, Printing Gazette, Prohibition Era, New Era Real Estate Recorder, Mechanics and Blacksmiths' Journal, Coopers' Journal, Illustrated Bazaar, House and Garden, Hygenia, Pulpit, Cross and Crown, Columbia, Our Youth, Cuyahoga County Blade, Household Treasure, Indicator, Pictorial World, Household Gem, and many others. Josiah A. Harris sold a part interest in his Herald and Gazette to A. W. Fairbanks in 1850, and Fairbanks added a job printing' outfit. George A. Benedict bought an interest in 1853, and became editor when Harris retired, near the close of the Civil war. The paper was prosperous at this time and strongly Republican in policy. Fairbanks became sole owner in 1876, when Benedict died. There was another change in ownership in 1877, when Richard C. Parsons and William P. Fogg purchased control. The Herald Publishing Company was formed later, a stock company whose shares were held by various interests. Parsons and Fogg resigned, and the paper fell upon evil days, ending with its absorption in 1885 THE CITY'S LIFE - 1031 by the Plain Dealer, which took the plant, and the Leader, which took the name, news franchises and subscription lists. The first Plain Dealer appeared on January 7, 1842, as a four-page weekly whose space was chiefly devoted to the advancement of the Democratic party, although it markedly improved the news-gathering attempts of its predecessors. A. N. Gray withdrew from the partnership early in 1845, but the younger brother, J. W., continued as editor until his death in 1862. By some of the important journalists of to-day, A. N. Gray is considered to belong to the group of the "great editors." J. W. owned control of the paper and was an outstanding example of what is called "personal journalism." He was strong in his opinions, and outspoken. He vigorously opposed the election of Lincoln and supported Stephen A. Douglas, his personal friend. However, he staunchly backed the cause of the North during the war. When he died, the administrator of his estate, John S. Stephenson, became editor and publisher until William W. Armstrong of Tiffin, a former Secretary of State and an experienced editor, bought the paper in April, 1865, and assumed editorship. In 1877 Armstrong organized the Plain Dealer Publishing Company, of which he was president, manager and editor. He conducted the paper as an evening daily until 1885. Then, in April, L. E. Holden and others, including Charles H. Bulkley, father of the present United States Senator, bought control, took over the Herald plant and issued a morning and Sunday daily. L. E. Holden, owner of the Hollenden Hotel, was president; L. Dean Holden, vice president ; R. R. Holden, treasurer; Charles E. Kennedy, secretary and general manager. The name of the Herald was continued under the caption News and Herald which was the afternoon edition of the Leader. The origin of the Leader may be traced back to 1844, when the Ohio American was published in Ohio City by R. B. Dennis as an organ of the Liberty party. Edwin Cowles be-came publisher in 1845. The True Democrat, an anti-slavery Whig paper, was founded at Olmsted Falls in 1846 and was moved to Cleveland one year later. In 1848 the True Demo-crat and the Ohio American were consolidated under the for- 1032 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS mer name. Joseph Medi11 came to Cleveland and started the Daily Forest City, and in 1853 this paper and the True Demo-crat combined as the Daily Forest City Democrat. Cowles, then in the printing' business, became one of the owners and took charge of the business department, the editors being Medill and John C. Vaughan. The name Cleveland Leader appeared in March of 1854 and the property passed, by purchase, into the sole hands of Cowles in 1855. Cowles assumed charge of the editorial de-partment in 18.60, when the Cleveland Leader Publishing Company was formed, in which he held stock control. The Evening News was added as an afternoon edition of the Leader in 1869, changing its name to the News and Herald when the latter was partitioned between the Leader and the Plain Dealer. Cowles was one of the "great editors." He was born in Ashtabula County, Ohio, in 1825, learned the printer's trade in Cleveland and was junior member of the firm of Smead 0,nd Cowles at the age of eighteen. He was one of the found-ers of the Republican party, was postmaster of Cleveland from 1861 to 1866, delegate to the Republican National Con-ventions of 1876 and 1884, and in 1877 was honorary com-missioner to the Paris Exposition. Constructively he was a Republican, first, last and always, in the fashion of the older days, canonizing all Republicans and condemning all oppon-ents ; destructively he was violently anti-Catholic. He never bestrode a fence and never looked over it to see the view on the other side. His newspaper he regarded as a vehicle for his personal views. Prior to the death of Editor George A. Benedict, the Herald had been the foremost paper of Northern Ohio, but it lost ground later through inferior management partly, and partly under the assaults of Cowles. Both Herald and Leader were Republican ; but competition, to Cowles, was enmity, and his attacks upon his rival were violent. In 1880 Mark Hanna bought the Herald, and Cowles characterized it as the tool of the Union Club and the street railway interests. After an especially bitter attack, Hanna vowed : THE CITY'S LIFE - 1033 "I will nail Cowles' hide to the fence if it takes the last dollar I've got." "It is a very tough hide," replied a friend. There was a brief but bloody battle. When it was over, Hanna somewhat sheepishly remarked : "It was." Cowles was the head of the "Order of the American Union," a society organized to fight the Catholic Church and its alleged efforts to dominate the Democratic party, and at-tacked the church almost daily in the columns of the Leader. The church could reply through its Catholic Universe but once a week, and Manly Tello, its editor, fought gamely, but under great handicap. L. A. Russell, attorney for Tom L. Johnson, was also attorney for Tello and The Catholic Universe. Russell's father had been a Congregational clergyman, his wife was a Roman Catholic and he was wont to describe himself as a Heathen. What with the common interest of Johnson, Tello, Russell and the Rev. William MacMahon, later editor of the Universe, in such new doctrines as Single Tax, and their concentration on civic righteousness along with consideration of the best methods with which to fight Cowles, the discussions of this group and its close adherents made part of the civic and journalistic history of the day, but were, like so many interesting matters, unrecorded. In 1877 the entire Republican local ticket was made up in Cowles' private office and carried to victory at the polls. Every candidate was valued according to the coincidence of his religious views with those of Cowles, his fitness for public office being a secondary consideration. Cowles roared, wore a black frock coat, practiced with a revolver in his private office and always carried the weapon with him on the street. Over his desk hung a cane of twisted wire, bent half double, and Cowles came through numerous personal encounters in his den unscathed. After the Hayes-Tilden campaign in 1876, when the election of Hayes was still in doubt, a mob gathered before the Superior Avenue entrance of the Leader offices and was kept in check by half a dozen policemen. The mob was composed of members of the Cleveland Democracy to whom Cowles Jr 1034 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS had referred as the "unwashed," and they sang, to the tune of "John Brown's Body" : "We'll hang Ed Cowles to a sour apple tree." Cowles and his staff never used the front entrance in those night, but came in by way of the rear door on Long Street. After Cowles died, March 4, 1890, James B. Morrow, who had been city editor, became editor-in-chief, under a management composed of E. H. Perdue, president; Alfred H. Cowles, vice president; Charles W. Chase, secretary ; W. F. Bulkeley, treasurer. Elbert H. Baker was advertising manager. Sunday editions were from twelve to sixteen pages in size, and salaries corresponded. The Leader was to continue as a medium for the promulgation of the personal views of its owners. Early in the new century it was acquired by Medill McCormick, grandson of Joseph Medill, proprietor of the Chicago Tribune and one of the heirs of the great harvester fortune. Medill McCormick was known to Cleveland through his marriage to Ruth Hanna, daughter of the Ohio Senator. The Hanna influence continued with the Leader until 1917. Careful readers of Cleveland's history will be impressed with the marked changes in thinking that seem to have come immediately upon the advent of the twentieth century and which left their impress upon political and economic life. The automobile appeared; banks reached their high point, nu-merically, and began combining; Tom L. Johnson introduced "civic-mindedness ;" those newspapers which were to survive perceived a great but simple truth, and applied it to their profit and to the profit of the community which they served. That truth might have been discerned centuries before if only editors had given thought to the fish business and seen the analogy between the two businesses. The fisherman gets his supply where he can find it; usually in well established locations but often in unexpected places. He culls from the catch and throws back into the sea such fish as are not pleasing to the consumer's palate, and THE CITY'S LIFE - 1035 long experience has taught him which to reject. Then he makes great haste to rush the good fish to the market, knowing how time dulls the appetite for his wares. Again, in the kitchen, the taste of the diners is studied before the dish is prepared. There is no record of a successful fisherman who, because of his deep and abiding. love for carp, brought only that variety to the market and spent his lifetime trying to make the public accept it. Had he tried that, he would have failed to profit himself and failed to do the community any good. Whether he had found an abundant carp supply and was seeking his own selfish interests, or whether a sincere zealot, battling for a Cause, the results would have been the same—failure and futility. The Press (which had entered Cleveland in 1878) knew, and the Plain Dealer was learning, that the public would buy what it wanted to read; but the Leader had not found that out, and had fallen upon unhappy days. Actually the Leader had lost first place at this time and was to. discover the fact in an interesting. way. A Plain Dealer canvass of the East End had shown an overwhelming lead for the Plain Dealer over the Leader in home delivery, and thirty-five merchants contributed one hundred dollars each for a canvass of the entire city. The Plain Dealer offered to bear all expenses for a house-to-house canvass, an offer which the merchants refused, but the Leader would have no part in the undertaking, and belittled it. The result showed that the Plain Dealer's morning cirlation was fifty per cent larger than that of the Leader, and that the Press, in the afternoon field, was fifty per cent ahead of the morning Plain Dealer. The Leader charged fraud, and that was a gigantic blunder, since the advertisers had conducted the canvass; and the Plain, Dealer came back with a proposal for a detailed examination of both Leader and Plain Dealer offices by a disinterested committee. The bitter editorial war brought benefits only to the Press, which kept out of the fight. Both the Press and the Plain Dealer supported Tom L. Johnson in his street railway fight, but the Leader stood with the old railway company and lost further ground. The mass 1036 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS of the population, naturally, were for lower fares and abolish-ment of monopolistic privileges. Or rather, they were for the abolishment of those privileges in so far as they could see that their own pockets were directly affected, and they knew that the Leader was controlled by the capitalistic forces which controlled the Cleveland Railway Company, and consequently regarded anything the Leader had to say upon the subject as dictated by biased motives. The Leader supported William J. Akers, Theodore E. Burton, Herman C. Baehr, against Johnson ; supported anyone and everyone who was a Republican and against the new railway people. The Press was calling the Leader "Grandma" and the epithet stung the old lady to an effort to rejuvenate. She moved from the old home on lower Superior Avenue to the splendid new Leader Building on Superior and East Sixth Street, and brought in Nathaniel C. Wright and Harry S. Thalheimer, as business manager and editor respectively, to infuse new blood. Two Press men were hired as news editor and city editor. Medill McCormick was abroad for his health and Attorney James H. Hoyt had charge of the paper. Attorney James H. Dempsey, a large stockholder in the Leader and a member of the law firm which bore the brunt of the legal battle for the Cleveland Railway Company, had much to do with shaping the paper's policies. The new editors bought new, modern dresses for "Grandma," but she turned from them in fright. She had a host of kinsmen, of many tastes and interests, and those who would have garbed her anew had to study the likes and dislikes of all this host before attempting to add a new bonnet or a bit of fluffy lace. She became much emaciated and lost her main support when Charles A. Otis bought the evening News and combined it with the World, which papers had entered the field some years before. She was reduced to eight pages, with an occasional ten, while the Plain Dealer had from twelve to fourteen, and both papers were sold for one cent a copy. New money, to the extent of fifty thousand dollars, was furnished by Dan R. Hanna, son of the Senator, and in 1910 there were signs of new vigor. The Leader was increased to twelve pages and the Sunday edition gained greatly in circu- THE CITY'S LIFE - 1037 lation. Hanna bought control from the majority of stock-holders and, in 1912, bought the News from Otis, issuing the Leader in the morning and the News in the afternoon, while the Sunday edition was a combination under the name of the News-Leader. In 1917 the Leader was purchased by the Plain Dealer and discontinued. The News continued—first in the Leader Building and later, in 1926, in its fine new plant at East Eighteenth Street and Superior Avenue. A Sunday edition was still called the Sunday News-Leader. When Dan R. Hanna, Senior, died, the property had passed to his son, Dan R., Junior. Finally, in November, 1932, the News became affiliated with the Plain Dealer through the agency of a holding company, and thus passed a relic of a former day of journalism. It is a tangled skein, this newspaper history, and not to be easily unravelled. There were other newspapers than those mentioned, some of which have been forgotten. The Recorder was one, and it had a very important circulation soon after its appearance in 1895. It issued only four pages, without cuts, was politically independent and well edited by George A. Robertson. In many ways it resembled the Times of later days. The Commercial, backed by Samuel Scovill, former head of the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company, appeared in March, 1922, as a morning "business man's" paper, without a Sunday edition. Two years later the name was changed to Times. O. K. Shimansky, veteran corre-spondent for the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Toledo Blade, was placed in charge. Later, Earle E. Martin, former editor of the Press, was made editor and continued until the Times suspended. The Times experiment is most illuminating. Like the Christian Science Monitor, it was the type of newspaper that nearly everyone would say he wanted but that few would buy. Clean, wholesome, reliable and free from morbid or indecent appeal, both types meet with full popular approval and are the sort that every newspaper man would like to publish. Yet the life of the Times was but a few years; and the Monitor, after twenty-two years of steady growth, has but 125,000 circulation throughout the world; while the Plain 1038 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS Dealer, circulating largely through Northern Ohio, has 274,914 readers of its Sunday edition alone. The World first appeared in 1889, but the Sunday World, formerly the Sunday Journal, had been in existence for some years previously. George A. Robertson, of the Sunday Sun and Voice, started the Evening Sun about this time. Later, in the fall, the Morning Times was started. The Daily and Sunday World was the only survivor. B. F. Bower was editor and manager and F. B. Squire was one of the chief backers. Robert P. Porter later acquired control, and in 1905 the World, the evening Plain Dealer, which used to be known as the Post, and the News and Herald were combined as the Cleveland News by Charles A. Otis. Now we must go back to the fall of 1878 and become acquainted with two young. Detroit men named Edward W. Scripps and John S. Sweeney, just come to Cleveland for the purpose of publishing a newspaper called The Penny Press. Both had had some newspaper experience in Detroit, where James E. Scripps, elder brother of Edward, had established the Evening News. Scripps assumed editorial charge and Sweeney was business manager. They owned an upright Baxter engine, a four-cylinder Hoe press and an idea worth millions. This idea was simply that there were more "common people" to read newspapers than there were "best citizens." The Evening News then sold for two cents, but all other local papers sold for five cents. In a small office next the Theatre Comique on Frankfort Street, just west of Bank Street, the two proceeded to issue a four-page sheet, of ridiculous dimensions and crude "make-up," to sell for a penny. Charles E. Kennedy in his "Fifty Years of Cleveland" expresses the attitude of Cleveland newspapermen toward this newcomer when he tells of Edwin Cowles chuckling over the little paper and reckoning the days of its life, giving it first two months, then five or six, and then ceasing his calculations and his chuckles as the Press ate steadily into the circulation of Cowles' Evening News. Cowles and Scripps were diametric opposites as editors. Cowles was a sincere Crusader for a Cause, and used his THE CITY'S LIFE - 1039 paper to advance his personal views. Scripps was a business man who learned where the most customers were, and devoted his attention to learning what these customers wanted, and giving it to them. The crusader created distrust for his paper because readers thought his news columns were biased ; the business man gained confidence for his paper because its readers thought he had entered the lists as a champion of the commoners. The crusader's paper lost its influence and its circulation, consequently its power for good works, while the business man's paper made its owner not only an exceedingly wealthy man but one of the most powerful figures in the United States. The present head of his chain of more than twenty-six newspapers was recently named as one of fifty men who "rule the country." He is more than that. More millions read his views every day and are guided by them than the President reaches, or any edu-cator, statesman, preacher or captain of finance. His news-gathering association, the United Press, covers the daily do-ings of the world, and his "feature" syndicate, the Newspaper Enterprise Association, treats these doings as a weekly or monthly magazine does, in retrospect and analysis. It was stated at the outset of this chapter that sensational journalism was a protector of civic morals. Scripps proved it, He set out to learn what his biggest public wished to read in the way of news, and found that it wished crime and di-vorce scandals, "exposes" of corruption in "high life," and what is termed "sensational" treatment of news. Scripps had not the slightest desire to cultivate a taste for this sort of reading, nor has any other editor of importance. It is diffi-cult and exceedingly dangerous to handle scandalous matter. Every newspaper in Cleveland knew of Cassie Chadwick's operations long before they were made public, but every one was deterred from printing the story for fear of libel proceedings, until a disreputable weekly, having nothing to lose, financially or otherwise, scored a "scoop" by printing the story, and the Press followed. Newspaper work would be the easiest and most profitable enterprise in the world if the public demand was for sermons, exclusively, for clergymen are glad to bring their sermons to the newspaper office, type- 1040 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS written and ready to be set up in type, free of any danger of the haunting libel suit which hovers constantly over every newspaper editorial room. It is well known that a newspaper's profits are not made from the sale of its copies, but from its advertising columns, and the price and extent of advertising is controlled mainly by the volume of circulation. The paper must have circulation to get advertising, and to get circulation it must do as any other merchant does—supply the goods that are in de-mand by the greatest number of customers. It is the same truth that has been learned by theatrical men, but there is a distinction to be made between the two. The newspaper owns and uses for righteousness a power gained by catering to the lower literary appetites. But, to be completely fair, it must be added that the primary—not the sole—purpose of this righteousness is profit. It used to be the custom for editors of the Press to hold morning meetings to plan the day's work, and occasionally someone would say : "We haven't had a crusade for a long time." Then there would follow a deliberation as to the form of "crusade" which should be undertaken. A crusade was a criticism of something or someone, extending over a period of days, until the public tired or until the purpose was accomplished. After the Collinwood school fire, for instance, the school board promised to have all school doors open outward ; but when the board failed to act promptly, the Press undertook a crusade to force action. The recent prosecution of party leaders, following' discovery of a shortage in the county treasury, was a good example of the effects of a crusade. If the newspapers of Cleveland would depart from "yellow" practices, as those practices are expressed in vehe-ment, "sensational" protests against abuses, the citizens would have to organize vigilante groups to protect their very firesides. The popular press stands as the bulwark against corruption such as the average citizen, comparatively secure now, could not imagine. That is "fighting fire with fire." Scripps saw all that from the beginning, and brought THE CITY'S LIFE - 1041 down anathemas while he brought in subscriptions and advertising. He had the usual fierce struggle at the beginning, naturally, and was fond of telling how everyone demanded increases in salary as the business grew, until he himself, with twelve dollars a week, was the lowest paid employee on the paper and could not afford to raise his own salary. Then there was a time when hoodlums, hired, the Press charged, by a steel manufacturer whom the Press had criticized, wrecked the little Press plant. Robert F. Paine, now in retirement as "editor emeritus" of the Scripps organization, is the best known of the Press editors. Henry Weidenthal, Harry N. Rickey and Earle E. Martin, later industrial commissioner of the Chamber of Commerce, editor of the Times and latterly editor of the News, were well remembered editors. It was not hard to find good men for the Press editorial staff, for as the paper's prosperity advanced, salaries were comparatively high, hours were attractive and the chain of newspapers and news services which Scripps accumulated made chances of advancement good. There is no space here to list the good men who have held high editorial positions on the Press, for the policy has been to change these editors constantly and thus maintain the impression of freshness in news treatment. Personal journalism has disappeared from Cleveland, anyway, and editors' personalities are of little interest now. The Press engaged in no controversies with its competitors, and thus marked another long advance. It is not and never was entangled with local business and financial interests, and would never consent to dictation by advertisers. On one occasion the largest advertiser in the city was allowed to withdraw his business when he submitted demands as an ultimatum, but the advertiser returned of his own accord in less than a year. The Press is treated at length because it is unique and because it establishes the point desired. Its Cause was to pros-per. Its prosperity brought power, and right use of that power brought greater prosperity. It took up arms for Tom L. Johnson in his fight for the people, and went to the limit of guaranteeing, to the extent of half a million dollars, an 1042 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS issue of securities of Johnson's low fare street railway company. Mayor Johnson served four terms, or eight years, and then stood for re-election. There were evidences that the voters were growing' tired of Johnson, and Press editors held many conferences to decide whether or not the paper should support him for a fifth term. The single issue was whether he could be re-elected. If he couldn't, the Press did not wish to be caught on the losing side. It was finally decided that there was too much doubt over the outcome, the Press took a straddling position, and Herman C. Baehr was elected. Newspapers used to be embarrassed over the use of the title "Mister." It was obviously applied with propriety to an eminent philanthropist, but look odd before the name of a foreign laborer arrested for intoxication. The Press solved the problem by eliminating "Misters" altogether, and characterized itself by that action better than any of the words written here could do. In 1932 the Press had the largest evening circulation in the city, occupied it own fine building at Rockwell and East Ninth Street and had never undergone change of ownership. Control was still in the Scripps family, a son of the founder, Robert, being. nominal head of the Scripps-Howard Company, which owns the big chain of newspapers and news services referred to, although the editorial policies of the chain were directed by Roy Howard, who worked his way up from the editorial ranks. Howard was a war cor-respondent in France during the World war, and it was he who sent the wire announcing the Armistice in advance of the actual signing thereof. From 1885, when the Plain Dealer acquired the Herald plant and advertising contracts, until 1898, the Plain Dealer practically stood still in a business way. Its volume of business showed little or no increase ; the paper was getting no-where financially, and Mr. Holden recognized the fact. On the news side some progress had been made, and its standing in the community had improved in spite of certain factors tending to undermine public confidence in its sincerity. Lib-erty E. Holden owned the Hollenden Hotel, silver mines in Utah and large holdings of real estate in Cleveland, particu- THE CITY'S LIFE - 1043 larly along the lake shore, east. These interests were con-sidered by newspaper readers as representing his Cause, re-flecting themselves in the columns of the paper. Unlike Cowles, Holden himself was not an editor, but trusted to others to represent his views in the daily Plain Dealer. He supported William Jennings Bryan's candidacy for the presidency in 1896, and his subscribers related his position to his silver interests. The paper seemed on the road to the oblivion that has come to every Cleveland newspaper used for the advancement of its owner's personal financial welfare. Holden knew he was not succeeding with his newspaper, but did not know enough about journalism to analyze the reasons. Accordingly, in the spring of 1898 he called in Elbert H. Baker, formerly for years with the Cleveland Leader and the Cleveland Herald, who was then advertising manager of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a Joseph Pulitzer paper. Charles E. Kennedy was its business manager. Baker, who was familiar with the newspaper situation in Cleveland, told Holden where he believed the trouble lay. He invited Baker to undertake the Plain Dealer management. At Baker's suggestion, Ken-nedy 'was brought into the picture. With Baker dictating its terms, a contract unique in newspaper experience was drawn up between Holden as owner of the Plain Dealer on the one side and Baker and Kennedy, as lessees of the property, on the other side. Made first for a period of eight years, it was extended later to cover nine. This contract gave Baker and Kennedy complete control of the property. They dictated editorial and business policies as completely as if they had been owners of the paper. For the term of the contract Holden had in effect surrendered con-trol, and the Plain Dealer came gradually to be accepted by the community as a free newspaper and not the personal organ of its owner. Before the end of the nine years Charles E. Kennedy dropped out as a joint lessee of the property, and when the contract was renewed in 1907 it gave to Elbert H. Baker sole control of the Plain Dealer. By successive renewals of the contract the Baker management was continued until 1920, when Baker chose to retire from active direction of the enterprise. These years cover the period of the paper's greatest 1044 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS growth, both in business stature and in the confidence of the widening community it served. The contract of 1898, extended by renewals to reach 1920, proved profitable both to the lessees of the property and its owner. The Plain Dealer responded in fortune almost as soon as its control passed from its owner to those he had chosen to operate it. One of Baker's first acts was a re-check of circu-lation figures ; while this showed a very large shrinkage of the count that had previously been published, it strengthened the confidence of the public and the advertisers. The Plain Dealer supported Tom L. Johnson as mayor of Cleveland and added thousands to its circulation, especially on the West and South Sides. Though the paper under Holden in 1896 had vigorously supported Bryan, under Baker and Kennedy in 1900 it showed little editorial interest in the campaign, and Cleveland Republicans were pleased at the fair news treatment it accorded both candidates. This more liberal and less partisan attitude on the part of a paper that had been strongly Democratic from its birth charmed the community by its novelty. The idea, then fresh but now universally accepted, that a newspaper is obligated in decency to give as fair a report of one party's activities as of the other, was insisted on by Baker from the first. The result was seen in steadily mounting financial stability and a steadily increasing reputation as a reliable daily chronicle. E. B. Lilley was managing editor of the Plain Dealer under Kennedy as editorial director. He was succeeded by Erie C. Hopwood, who was given the title of editor in 1920. Paul Bellamy is now managing editor. George M. Rogers is general manager. Ben P. Bole, a son-in-law of Liberty E. Holden, is president of the Plain Dealer Publishing Co., and Elbert H. Baker is chairman of the board. Emphasis has been placed on the fact that those newspapers which saw their opportunities through the cold eyes of the counting room were the only ones which succeeded here, a fact well borne out by history. Further indication of this is seen in the development which occurred in November, 1932, when the News became affiliated with the Plain Dealer through the agency of a holding company. The inference might be that this would have a sinister effect upon news treatment, unless further insight were gained. THE CITY'S LIFE - 1045 The editors of the future are being trained today in the ranks of Cleveland's newspapers to avoid the blunders of the past, and to know that the reader must be supplied with the kind of reading which he likes, unbiased by the purely personal opinions of the editor. Therefore the great majority of the readers are making their own newspapers and will continue to do so. In matters of real public concern the newspapers direct opinion as always, guided toward the right by knowledge that the mass of public opinion is toward the right, plus the fact that men who win their way to the front rank of journalism are necessarily men of character and integrity. Back of the pages which the reader sees are tales of self-sacrifice in the cause of public welfare, tales whose telling would hearten the public's faith that its newspapers were in strong and honest hands. These stories are never told in newspaper columns, and so the editor remains an unsung hero. In the latter days of the street railway war, Mayor Johnson and Horace Andrews, president of the Cleveland Railway Company, had come to a deadlock, Johnson controlled the City Council and would not grant extensions of franchises to the old company, but found that the financial interests would not advance needed funds to his competing company. Both men were angry, embittered, exhausted, and disaster threatened the public. Elbert H. Baker, then General Manager of the Plain Dealer, called upon the mayor and asked him if the Council would consent to leaving the entire situation in the mayor's hands. Johnson assembled the members of the Council Committee on Street Railways in half an hour, while Baker waited, and gained their approval. In another hour a majority of the Council had been reached by telephone, and these also consented. Baker then asked the Mayor if he would agree to arbitration through Frederick H. Goff, then a leading corporation lawyer. "This is a tremendous thing you are asking," said the Mayor, "but Fred Goff is the one man I would trust with such a responsibility and, if he will serve, I will agree." 1046 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS Baker then went to Goff's office. He explained the situation. "It must be understood," said Baker, "that you are to be paid no fee, directly or indirectly, and that there must be no tincture of self-serving in any of these negotiations." "How long will it take?" "I do not know. Possibly six months." "And you are asking me to give up my practice for six months? Do you know what that amounts to? Do you real-ize what you are asking?" Baker said: "I remember when you worked your way through college and when you began your law practice, penniless. Since those days Cleveland has been very good to you. The time has now come when you must do something for the city." Tears came to Goff's eyes. He called in a stenographer and dictated the terms upon which he would undertake the arbitration. Goff was emotionally moved to consent, but in the business of dictating a contract he was the great lawyer again, and set out an agreement so drastic that Baker suspected he was trying to make terms impossible for Johnson or Andrews to accept. Goff refused to modify them, however, and Baker took what he could get and went back to his office. There he called up Andrews and the latter hurried over. Andrews read Goff's agreement and sat there thinking for a long while without a word. At last he said : "I agree." "Will you call your board together at once?" Baker asked. "Certainly." Then Baker appeared before the railway directors and answered a torrent of questions. In the end the board consented. Arbitration between Johnson and Goff in the presence of the City Council began immediately, and continued for five months, one difference after another between the contesting interests being swept aside by fair discussion and compromise. Finally, however, the negotiators came to a deadlock over a few remaining' points of difference and the whole peace move faced defeat, threatening an instant renewal of the old traction warfare. THE CITY'S LIFE - 1047 Elbert H. Baker and the Plain Dealer under his direction were watching the situation with an acuteness of interest born of the fact that Baker had been responsible for launching the whole negotiation in the first instance. A peace maneuver so near success must not be wrecked now if any way could be found to avert the disaster. Baker thought of Federal Judge Robert W. Tayler of the Northern Ohio District Court. They were personal friends. The judge stood high in the confidence of the community. And so it came about that, at Baker's earnest solicitation and after much hesitation on the judge's part, Judge Tayler was brought into the traction negotiation as arbitrator of the points of dispute still standing between Johnson and Goff. This arbitration, following a historic negotiation, brought a solution of the ten-year traction war. The "Tayler plan" came into existence, bringing the traction lines of Cleveland under strict public control and assuring car riders service at cost, with a return to the stockholders strictly limited by law. It was a conspicuous piece of pioneering in the difficult field of transportation policy. It came about through the efforts of a newspaper man alive to his responsibility to his com-munity. Thousands of memories of this kind fill the minds of newspapermen, stories which have never been told in newspaper columns and probably never will be. The names of the "great editors" of old were blazoned on their pages and handed down to posterity. The names of the greater editors of today are not publicized. These will be better known by their works. The modern newspaper parallels in its development the growth of merchandising.. The first little one-man paper is like the first little one-man store. Small quantities of news, as of merchandise, come over seas and mountains through the wilderness to the little printing office with its small hand press. Readers, like buyers, must take what is given them and do with what they can get. The newspaper of today is like a vast department store. It offers everything anyone can want. News foreign, domestic, local, political, financial, theatrical—let the reader take what he will. The average amount of space devoted to women's interests alone 1048 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS —and by that is meant merely the matter segregated into separate departments—runs, in the Plain Dealer, from eight to nine columns on a week day to forty or forty-five columns on Sunday. Crime seems sometimes to be over-emphasized, because an occasional crime will for a few days overshadow the rest of the paper. But take it by the year, the space devoted to crime runs less than that devoentto the arts. This statemment is made on the authority of W. G. Vorpe, who has made his measurements of music and murder with a footrule. Advertising has sometimes dictated the policies of newspapers, though the Cleveland journals have been singularly free from such domination. So attempts have sometimes been made to publish an adless newspaper. This never succeeds, and for a reason not obvious at first glance. Women will not read an adless newspaper, because advertisements are regarded by them, in their business of running households, as most important news. The average woman cares more about the fact that her favorite store is offering the type of coat she wants for herself, or rompers for her child, at the price she is willing. to pay, than she does about the rate of foreign exchange. So the newspaper of today shows forth the life of today, in about the proportions that life is lived by all the people. Religion, philanthropy, art, music, drama, all are there. So is the apartment to rent, the house to buy, the clothes, furniture, food, fuel that life needs at rock bottom. The job and the worker come together in the newspaper, buyer and seller, loser and finder. The young people are married, the child is born, the aged parent dies. Crime and politics, parks and schools, pity, terror, joy, revenge, the ideals of a great civic leader, the efforts to oust an ineffective official, there are told. In the paper are poetry, books and daily fun. Wars and alarms and the weather, radio programs, the stock market, new forms of architecture, and how to feed the growing child. Interpretation of life as it moves is in the paper, also, in the editorial columns. No longer do these rage and thunder, fighting individual quarrels. They seek, instead, to show ' THE CITY'S LIFE - 1049 what happenings mean in their general relationship, so that readers, seeing the meaning, then for themselves may act upon it. Nor are romance and adventure absent, nor their tawdry counterparts. In short, what the reader wants he can find, and if a special shelf be bare today, there will be another shipment tomorrow. The city directory supplies the names of sixty-nine newspapers in Cleveland, most of which are foreign language papers and religious or racial organs, such as the well-known Waechter und Anzeiger, Catholic Universe, Szabadsag, Jewish Independent, Jewish Daily World, Ohio Farmer, Daily Legal News, trade journals, house organs, neighborhood weeklies and others of the kind. The services of some six hundred printing establishments are required to satisfy the city's demands for reading matter. In fact, publishing is the fifth or sixth largest industry in Cleveland, as measured in production value. One West side company alone publishes six million books a year, of which two million are Bibles, two million dictionaries and the rest fiction. This is The Commercial Book Binding Company. Shakespeare holds first place in its fiction output. Trade journals of national circu-lation are issued from Cleveland, but no major weekly or monthly magazine. The oldest printing concern is the J. B. Savage Company, which began on Frankfort Street in 1869. Beautiful magazines like the Bystander and Your Garden and Home deserve special mention. They give fuller mention to society and club doings than can the daily papers, and their pictures are of constant interest and pleasure. The covers of the Bystander alone, in the last few years, have been giving a comprehensive picture of Cleveland in its many aspects. Your Garden and Home rather specializes, as its title indicates, in matters of interest to Garden clubs. It has been well edited by Dean Halliday, and has been including matter of historical as well as present interest. Cleveland Town Tidings has had a long and varied existence, although only a short one under its present name and a shorter one in its present dress. Both Tidings and the Bystander inherit from the old Town Topics. But the By-