Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1888-02-02
A HARRISON COUNTY BOY.

-Amelie Rir1s IN Hdrpcr's for February.
A HARRISON COUNTY BOY.
EXTRAORDINARY ACHIEVEMENTS OF
JAMES J. WEST IN SEVEN YEARS.
Chicago Letter TO New York Press.
Less than thirty years ago boy with
high forehead was born in Cadiz, o.
Less than seven years ago a young man
with head in which ideality was prom
inent entered the office of the Western
Publishing Company, in this city, and
agreed to work ten hours day for 50 a
week. He said he came from Cadiz, that
he owed $3.50, that he wanted to earn
enough to pay his debt and resume his
study for the ministry. He was pale,
diffident and colorleSs character. TODAY
he is the controlling owner of the Chicago
Times He is worth more money than
Jay Gould or Phil Armour had accumu-
lated after seven years of business life.
The young man is James J. West
Two years after entering the publishing
house he became its manager. At the
end of the third year he paid SGT, 500 for
fourth interest. The firm published
books by subscription, and in one year,
under Jim" Vests management, the
house sold of a single publication the
enormous number of 1,350,000 copies at
50 per copy. The establishment is now
one of the largest in the world, with
branch houses throughout the country,
in Canada, Europe and Australia
Since the New York Tribune changed
hands there has been no newspaper pur-
chase of such magnitude as the one re-
Gently effected here. Wilbur F. Story
| left great newspaper, a rich estate, a
dead, divorced, and living wife, but
he died childless. To his heirs he left,
unwittingly, century of litigation
The purchase of his paper, which was
only one asset of the estate, involved the
adjustment of differences between Iiti-
gantS. Chicagoans who best know the
hostile claimants to the estate said COM
position of their troubles was impossible.
Several wealthy men and two syndicates
tried it and failed. The young man from
CadiZ succeeded. There were domestic
threads to be gathered which were drop
ped in the days when Stephen A. Doug
las, Clement l.. Vallandigham and VIII
bur F. Story were chums. Details of the
feuds of three families, DEGREES of courts,
partition and alimony suits, conflicting
claims of litigants which lawyers had
been industriOusly engaged in complica-
ting for five years, were obstacles to the
success of the young man with the pro-
tuberant brow, but he was equal to the
emergency.
Before advancing he decided upon a
plan of attack. Clinton A Snowden, of
the Chicago Nail, who came to this city
from McHenry county, Illinois, was Sc
lected as Vests chief of staff. Snowden
was managing editor once under Story,
and made good record. To reach Snow
den, West bought Frank Hatton's inter
est in the Nail. Then the two began TO
extend olive branches in the direction of
Storey's heirs. There We're barely enough
branches to go around.
This city does not furnish more Stri-
king illustration of the possibilities of
achievement to a young with genius
for business. The poverty-stricken the
illogical student in Cadiz in 1882 and the
$S-a-week young clerk in 'S3 owns the
lions share of the stock of the Chicago
Times in 1888. In six years he has got
together over 100000. West is college
bred, is fertile in ideas, exact and sys-
tematic in his business policies, which
reflect original methods coupled with
courage.
Clinton A. SnOwden, editOr-i chief of
the Times, is a graduate of the Chicago
University. In 1872 he was reporter
on Storey's staff. Three years later he
became city editor and was rapidly ad-
vanced to the responsibilities of manage
ment. During his administration Canon
Farrar preached his famous sermon on
Hell" SnOwden succeeded in enliSting
so many preachers in discussion of the
topic that he was enabled to lay before
Times readers columns and pages of fresh
and original news regarding that highly
tropical locality. Another stroke of ex-
ceptional enterprise was the publication
of a cabIegram from London giving all
the changes in the text of the New Tes-
lament at the time of its revision.
subsequently serving as Washington
correspondent of the paper, he resigned
to become managing editor of the Na-
tiOhGJ Republican. Later he was man
aging editor of the World, and in 1885,
with Frank HattOn, bought the Chicago
Mail, which is now a paving piece of
property. West and Snowden have been
friends for years.
The Cadiz man is brunette, smooth
faced, nervous, quick and energetic, and
compactly built, so that he is large man
without looking it, an intense worker,
and in some respects diffident and retir-
ing. To secure the journal West was
compelled to swing the entire estate,
which represented $1,250,000 The nat
ural heirs now own StOrey's unimproved
real estate here, including the magnifi-
cent marble castle which the editor did
not live to finish.
4 WOMAN'S DISCOVERY