Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1890-01-19
OUR NEW YORK LETTER.

l
arms of Costa RIGA. CECIL CHARLES.
OUR NEW YORK LETTER.
Ono OF the Prominent Figures in the
| Journalism of Today.
Especial Correspondence
| NEW YORK, Jan. 6.-The highest priced
| daily newspaper in New York is one that is
least familiar to its more than a million and
| three-ouarters of inhabitants. Keeping
| strictly to the letter of our modern type dis
| tinctioas, The Journal of Commerce is not a
daily" publication, for it has no Sunday
| edition, and it breaks its six-times-a-week
issue on legal holidays. All the other morn
| ing news sheets of the great American me-
| tropolis, which are printed in the English
language, appear every day of the annual
365. Their editors, reporters, compositors,
stereotypers, pressmen and web-perfecting
presses rest only during the hours when mer-
chants, clerks, statesmen or saleswomen, law
ye-s, artists, bankers, commission agents,
mechanics and laborers of various sizes,
colors, ages, sorts and conditions, do the most
active hustling for an increase of personal
comforts or a bare living.
There is a bookful of history inside of that
in the old time Knickerbocker neighborhood
of Beaver and Hanover streets, where the
brains, the steam power and the moral force
of The Journal of Commerce are housed.
have said that of all New York's morning
newspapers it is least known to the reading
masses. That is not the reason, however, of
its being locally and nationally regarded as
the most influential Nor does its wide influ-
ence acknowledged, not boasted) account for
its high price of seven cents per copy! That
is caused by the heavy cost of production and
fully warranted by the real value of this pa
per's contents to that commercial and finan-
cial world which has its hub in Wall street
and its spokes in the trade exchanges.
Our money kings and merchant princes, as
well as those hiving, striving hundreds who
hope to become either or both, calmly repose
trust in the market reports, the latest special
quotations, the carefully tabulated figures
and the usually incisive, always sound and
practical, editorials of The Journal of Com
merce. They look upon it, and so did their
fathers before them, as a beacon light safely
plotting arks of prosperity around, rather
than across, the myriad dangerous shoals of
mercantile speculation. For this sure guide
they willingly pay $15 a year, and it is some
what notorious in trade circles that many
business firms regularly subscribe for extra
copies Of it.
OF the seven New York newspapers which
own, control and form that powerful organi-
zation known as the Associated Press, The
Journal of Commerce and The Sun are the
oldest, both having been established in 1888,
or two years prior to James Gordon Ben
nett's more famous Herald. The Tribune was
founded in 1871; The Times ten years later;
The World in 1859, while The Mail and Ex-
press takes it's natal date of 1886 from the
former Express, started by James and Eras-
tus Brooks. When Alexander Cummings
and his coadjutors began publishing The
New York World, they bought The Courier
and Enquirer's news franchise from James
Watson Webb Ten years antecedent to
this, or about the time when Zachary Taylor
was inaugurated president of the United
States, there came one day from Philadel-
phia, travel grimed by the then slow and
dusty railroad passage, man of conspicuous
stature intelligence, ambition and tact. His
muscles and grip were iron; his name, Stone
He walked with pavement ringing, "get-
there-David" step, which attracted and
strangely fascinated the men, who, during
the past forty years, have greatly strength
ened his hands and unseldshly helped him to
help himself and others as worthy.
When David NJ. Stone had for twelve
months, issue after issue, written all the orig
inal matter printed in The Dry Goods Re
porter, he demanded and commanded sal
airy of one thousand dollars per annum. He
earned every penny of it by hard, sharp work,
but in those days it was big sum even for
tall man with lofty aspirations. Recently
speaking of this rise and its rocketlike fzz he
said: Like all young men, l became little
intoxicated with my own success, and the
owner of the paper found it necessary to
quarrel with me. For three days-three of
the longest days of my hfe-I was without
work, and I've never been idle day since"
From the Office of The Dry Goods Reporter
he went to his lodgings to ponder and to plan.
At the close of the third day of serious
thinking his journalistic career was recon-
menced. An article which he wrote that
night was readily sold next day for twenty
silver dollars to the very paper he now owns
and has 50 long and SO ably edited. He was
soon engaged on fast and loose contract,
which in a comparatively brief space of time
was made binding The Journal of Com
merce began to feel his young blood in its
veins A salary of fifteen hundred dollars
was steadily raised until it was double that
amount, and mainly because the money mar
ket reports made by David ". Stone were
the talk of New York's most adroit financiers
William Cowper Prime, native Of Wash
ington county, n. Y, graduate Of Princeton
college, afterward noted lawyer and
ltterateur, author of Boat Life in Egypt
and Nubian and similar works, had written
the "Owl Greek Letters" for The Journal of
Commerce, and became pecuniariy interest
ed in the paper, subsequently assuming edi-
torial charge OF it. He teok strong liking
to Mr. Stone, and associated him in the man
agement. This was in 1851 Before many
months the assistant had become editor-in-
chief He has chung to the post ever since,
carrying added proprietary cares upon his
broad shoulders with graceful ease.
David n Stone Is an authority on land
and sea Insurance. He knows all that Is
necessary for any man to learn about home
and foreign banking laws. Moreover, he is
an oracle on real estate values and huctua-
tions.
He loves children, birds and flowers. His
rose garden in Brooklyn is marvel OF beauty
and profusion. He enjoys his old age, for be
has preserved much of the yigor and elastici-
ty Of youth HENRY CLAY LUKESS
Artistic Tin Soldiers.
Great artistic excellence has been reacie~
In Europe in the manufacture Of TIN soldiers
A German military officer has found it posi-
bic to represent military oper ations CD large
scale by their means. he res collected 81 coo
tin soldiers, belonging to every branch Of the