The Mirrors of Washington by Clinton W. (Clinton Wallace) Gilbert
page 40 of 168 (23%)
page 40 of 168 (23%)
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journalism in the country at that time. Later, on the Chicago
Evening News, on the staff of which were Victor Lawson, Eugene Field, and Melville Stone, he completed his training. When he joined the staff of the New York World at the age of twenty-one he was a competent, if not a brilliant newspaper man. His first important billet was the New Jersey editorship. This assignment across the river might very easily have been the first step toward a journalistic sepulcher, but not for Harvey. He made use of the post to garner an experience and knowledge of New Jersey politics that were to have an important bearing upon the career of Woodrow Wilson later. At the same time he attracted the attention of Joseph Pulitzer who appointed him managing editor of the World before he was thirty. While directing the World's policy during the second Cleveland campaign, Harvey met Thomas F. Ryan and William C. Whitney, the financial backers of the Democratic party. This prepared the way for his step from Park Row to Wall Street after his break with Pulitzer. But the ways of Wall Street were not for Harvey. Nevertheless he was cautious enough to help himself to some of the profits that were forthcoming in those days of great amalgamations. With commendable foresight, however much he might have despised the methods then prevalent in the fields of high finance, he acquired enough to make him independent, to follow his own bent, and strangely enough, in the acquiring he came to the conclusion that the Republic could not survive if the plundering of the people by the "interests" continued as it was proceeding at that time. |
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