Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1925-12-23
STORY OF LIFE
Continued from Pace Onel

city, Wnere even lHe HllSHty uuSt
fight to hang on.
With all his troubles ahead of him,
he started to work, and two months
later appeared the first number OF
the Argosy Naturalization an illus
trated weekly paper of eight pages
for boys and girls. Horatio Alger,
Jr., was one of the contributors. This
was the beginning of a 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 out 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. 1t
had been fight every step of the
way. and not once did luck lend a
hand with the burden.
His most notable achievement In
the newspaper field came in Febru-
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 time, and then changed simply
to the Herald. At the same time the
Evening Sun, another Munsey news
q n oh a. H.
Mr.. Munsey also acquired the
Telegram and in 1923 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 Her
aid to Ogden Reid. the deal including
the European edition of the paper.
MIR. Munsey said he had sold the
Herald, which was consolidated with
the Tribune by Mr.. Reid, because of
his dislike for monstrous Sunday
papers in which I have never been
! able to interest myself to any great
degree.
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 ultimate
success out-did the Imagination of
even that famous writer.
Born in the little town of Mercer.
Maine. August Fl, 1854, he has been
described as zone of those many bare
footed country boys who start life
with more in their heads than in
thei pockets" He attended the pub
lie school of Mercer for while. but
soon fplt tho ffr0 N
! His first job was in 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 impor-
tant publishing center. His work be-
came an obsession, and he hated II,
He knew he could do big things. The
four walls of telegraph office, he
wrote years afterward, "were to me
as the cage of a tiger yearning for
the boundless freedom of the jungle"
Il was so sure of myself" he con-
tinued. that I would willingly have
given 10 years of my life, without
compensation. for chance with
some of the big concerns of the
country-railroadin steel-manufac-
turing. shipping, banking, or any Of
s@AS D. SNt SkoPAC Ah0uSlIlcSs
Gradually the publishing germ en-.
| tered his blood. He drew up elabor-
ate plans for magazine and submit
ted them to various persons with
money, but IAN enterprise SO hazard
Gus as publishing, and managed by
a man who had no practical expert
ence, did not appeal to them"
Finally. his scheme was laid before
man more daring than the rest-a
northumberland arrangements were
made to begin publication of The Ar
COSY. The broker agreed to supply
$4,000, and Munsey, having $500
which he had saved, promptly invest
ed 1t in manuscripts. With these he
started for New York.
When he had opened his little Of
flee, he drew one of his new kitchen
chairs IN to the eight dollar table
and wrote for the $500. A few days
later he collapsed over that same ia
BILE. The broker up in Maine had
changed his mind. He would keep
his money. This Mr.. Munsey des-
cribed as ''jolt number one"
Next he took his scheme to a pub
Usher, who offered to bring the mag
azine out in his own name, retaining
Munsey as editor and manager. Two
months later the first number ap-
peared. and three months after that
the publisher failed. This was Jolt
number two"
The insolvent publisher owed the
editor and manager of The Argosy
something more than a thousand dol
lars in salary, which the latter took
for the goodwill of the infant week.
ly paper. Writing of this period, he
described 1t as "the beginning of a
struggle such as no man Is justified
in undertaking" He had no capital,
and no means of raising any. Many
advance subscriptions had been re-
ceived and the money spent. No one
had any faith in the magazine, and
it could get no credit.
Borrowing $500 from a friend in
Maine. he fought on to keep what
little life the publication had. In
the winter of 1886 he wrote his Sec
ond serial story for The Argosy. 1t
was called "Afioat in a Great City"
He ground out 5000 words a week
by candle-light, after long days of
struggle at the office. When he had
finished this, he looked back on the
four years of drudgery that he had
etv