My Memories of Eighty YearsDepew, Chauncey M. (Chauncey Mitchell)
History
My Memories of Eighty Years
Depew, Chauncey M. (Chauncey Mitchell)
Biography; Depew, Chauncey M. (Chauncey Mitchell), 1834-1928; United States -- History -- 1865-1921
During his active life Mr. Vanderbilt was very often importuned
to buy a New York daily newspaper. He was personally bitterly
assailed and his property put in peril by attacks in the press.
He always rejected the proposition to buy one. "If," he said,
"I owned a newspaper, I would have all the others united in
attacking me, and they would ruin me, but by being utterly out of
the journalistic field, I find that taking the press as a whole
I am fairly well treated. I do not believe any great interest
dealing with the public can afford to have an organ."
Colonel Scott, of the Pennsylvania, thought otherwise, but the
result of his experiment demonstrated the accuracy of Mr. Vanderbilt's
judgment. Scott selected as editor of the New York World one of
the most brilliant journalistic writers of his time, William H. Hurlburt.
When it became known, however, that the World belonged to
Colonel Scott, Hurlburt's genius could not save it. The circulation
ran down to a minimum, the advertising followed suit, and the
paper was losing enormously every month. Mr. Joseph Pulitzer,
with the rare insight and foresight which distinguished him, saw
what could be made of the World, with its privileges in the
Associated Press, and so he paid Scott the amount he had originally
invested, and took over and made a phenomenal success of this
bankrupt and apparently hopeless enterprise.
I tried during my presidency to make the New York Central popular
with the public without impairing its efficiency. The proof of the
success of this was that without any effort on my part and against
my published wishes the New York delegation in the national
Republican convention in 1888, with unprecedented unanimity
presented me as New York's candidate for president. I retired
from the contest because of the intense hostility to railroad men
in the Western States. Those States could not understand how
this hostility, which they had to railroads and everybody connected
with them, had disappeared in the great State of New York.
During my presidency the labor question was very acute and strikes,
one after another, common. The universal method of meeting the
demands of labor at that time was to have a committee of employees
or a leader present the grievances to the division superintendent
or the superintendent of motive power. These officers were
arbitrary and hostile, as the demands, if acceded to, led to an
increase of expenses which would make them unpopular with the
management. They had a difficult position. The employees often
came to the conclusion that the only way for them to compel the
attention of the higher officers and directors was to strike.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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