New Britain herald., 1925-12-22
Was Telegraph Operator

Was Telegraph Operator
Frank Andrew Munsey was 2S
years old and a telegraph operator
when he arrived in New York one
cold. bleak day In tho winter of 1882.
He had come down 10 the metropolis
from Maine, bringing all his proper
ty with him, II consisted OF a grip
full of manuscripts, the clothes he
had or. and $40 in cash. He was
going TO start publishing business.
Seeking focusing point for what
he felt certain, even at that time,
would ono day be great enterprise,
he engaged little room for an Of
fee, bought an eight dollar table
and couple OF cheap kitchen chairs
some pens and bottle OF ink, and
, the $40 was gone. Frank Munsey
was broke In the worlds greatest
city. where even the mighty must
fight to hang on.
With all his troubles ahea of him,
! he started to work, and two months
later appeared the first number Of
the Argosy magazine-then an illus
tratcd weekly paper of eight pages
| for boys and girls. Horatio Alger
Jr. was one OF the contributors. This
was the beginning OF n struggle
which has had few If any parallels
IN the publishing world.
Forty years later. after one Of the
! most remarkable demonstrations of
hewing success ont of failure ever
/ seen in that particular business,
Frank Andrew Munsey had become
one of the foremost publishers in the
United States. numbering his news
papers and magazines by the score
and his wealth by the millions, It
had been fight every step of the
way. and not once did luck lend
hand with the burden.
Got Herald In 1920
His most notable achievement In
the newspaper field came in Fehru-
airy, 1920, when he acquired the New
York Herald. one of the oldest news
papers in the country, and merged
with it the New York Sun. the Her
AIDS senior by two years, which Mr..
Munsey had purchased in 1915 and
consolidated with the New York
Press. The elder James Gordon
Bennett had founded the Herald. and
Charles A. Dana developed the Sun.
The merged publication was called
The Sun and the New York Herald
for a time, and then changed simply
to the Herald. At the same time the
Evening Sun, another Munsey news
paper. was changed to the Sun.
Mr.. Munscy also acquired the Tele-
gram and in 1928 purchased the
Globe and Commercial Advertiser
which he consolidated with the sun.
In 1924, he bought the Evening Mail
and merged it with the Telegram.
Later in the year, he sold the
Herald to Ogden Reid, the deal in
cluding the European edition of the
paper. Mr.. Munsey said he had sold
the Herald, which was consolidated
with the Tribune by Mr.. Reid, be-
cause Of his dislike for monstrous
Sunday papers in which I have
never been able to interest myself to
any great degree"
His Early Life
The early life of Mr.. Munsey, as
he forged gradually ahead in spite
of countless disappointments and
bitter reverses, was not unlike that
Of an Alger hero, although his uIti-
mate success out did the Imagination
Of even that famous writer.
Born in the little town of Mer-
Ger, Maine, August 21. 1854, he has
been described as "one Of those
many bare-footed country boys who
start life with mora in their heads
than in their pockets" He attended
the public school of Mercer for a
while, but soon felt the urge to
make money. His first Job was IN
1.-THE country store, where he served
as general utility boy.
From there he went to a telegraph
office, learned to handle a key. and
was sent to Augusta, then an I'M
Iportant publishing center. His work
became an obsession, and he hated
it. He knew he could do big things.
The four walls OF telegraph office,
he wrote years afterward, were to
me as the cage to a tiger yearninG
for the boundless freedom of the
Jungle"
Il was so sure of myself" he con-
tinued, that l would willingly have
given 10 years of my life, without
compensation. for a chance witt
some Of the big concerns of tht
country railroading, steel-manu
featuring, shipping, banking, or an,
of the great staple industries"
Gradually the publishing germ en-
tered his blood. He drew up elabor
ate plans for a magazine and sub
I mitted them to various persons will
money, but IAN enterprise so hazard
GUS as publishing, and managed b,
a man who had no practical expert
ence, did not appeal to them"