The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst Read Free Page A
Author: Kenneth Whyte
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by, but there are some rough benchmarks for newspaper sales in the last decades of the century (a period of slight economic deflation). A large, profitable New York paper—the Herald or the World— was thought to be worth three to five million but, as these earned as much as a million a year, they were not for sale. The smaller but prestigious New York Tribune was valued at $1 million in the early 1870s. 10 The similarly revered New York Evening Post, selling only 25,000 copies a day and making a mere $50,000 annually, brought $900,000 after William Cullen Bryant died in 1868. 11 The Times hit a peak valuation of $1.5 million in 1876, when its circulation was between 40,000 and 75,000. 12 At the other end of the scale, and more relevant to Hearst’s deal, were the declining or damaged franchises. The pre-Pulitzer New York World, losing $40,000 a year and selling only 11,000 copies, went for $346,000 in 1883. 13 The New York Mercury, with less than 20,000 in circulation, sold for $300,000 in 1894. Against these transactions, Hearst’s $150,000 purchase of the money-losing Morning Journal, with its 70,000 in daily circulation, shows reasonably well.
But perhaps the best comparison for Hearst’s deal is Adolph Ochs’s contemporaneous purchase of the New York Times. In 1896, the Times was in receivership, with substantial monthly losses and daily sales of about 10,000 copies. Ochs, a penny-pincher and one of the shrewdest operators in the history of American publishing, invested $75,000 of borrowed money on condition that he would gain 51 percent of the newspaper’s stock if and when the paper had been profitable for three years. So Ochs bought half the stock and conditional control of the Times for $75,000 a year just months after Hearst bought 100 percent of the troubled Journal for $150,000. Ochs obtained a shaky but prestigious franchise; Hearst gained a humbler title with a larger audience. Ochs had to endure three years of sweat and uncertainty before taking firm command of his franchise; Hearst, with the advantage of more capital, took as a bonus to his purchase the Morgen Journal, a going concern with a circulation in excess of 40,000. Hearst got at least as good a deal as Ochs and each man bought the right paper for his purposes. 14
The Morning Journal was a good fit for Hearst not only for its price—which left him with funds to invest in its improvement—but also because of its heritage, which was both mass market and Democratic. There was nothing in its past to prevent its new owner from making it a popular progressive daily. “The reason I bought the Journal, ” Hearst later told Printer’s Ink, “was because of its large circulation. It had very much more circulation than the other papers that were offered me. I thought it would be easier to change the reputation, and make that good, than to take a paper with a good reputation and little or no circulation, and build it up.” 15
Hearst rated the day he and McLean agreed to terms among the happiest of his life. He had been studying, plotting, aching for an opportunity in New York for at least six years. He had persisted through the competitive pressures of San Francisco, through loss and upheaval in his own family, and through the economic panic of 1893. Now his dream was finally in hand. Never one for big emotional displays, he reportedly danced a little jig and rushed down to Park Row to survey the field of play.
Park Row, at least the newspaper portion of it, was a brief street in lower Manhattan reaching northeast from Broadway and Ann to Nassau Street and Printing House Square with its statue of Benjamin Franklin, patron saint of American publishing. City Hall and its grassy park occupied the west side. Most of the important dailies in New York fought for air in a jumble of buildings on the east. The Sun, the Mail and Express, the Commercial Advertiser, the Daily News, the World, the Morning Journal, the Times, and the Tribune
But perhaps the best comparison for Hearst’s deal is Adolph Ochs’s contemporaneous purchase of the New York Times. In 1896, the Times was in receivership, with substantial monthly losses and daily sales of about 10,000 copies. Ochs, a penny-pincher and one of the shrewdest operators in the history of American publishing, invested $75,000 of borrowed money on condition that he would gain 51 percent of the newspaper’s stock if and when the paper had been profitable for three years. So Ochs bought half the stock and conditional control of the Times for $75,000 a year just months after Hearst bought 100 percent of the troubled Journal for $150,000. Ochs obtained a shaky but prestigious franchise; Hearst gained a humbler title with a larger audience. Ochs had to endure three years of sweat and uncertainty before taking firm command of his franchise; Hearst, with the advantage of more capital, took as a bonus to his purchase the Morgen Journal, a going concern with a circulation in excess of 40,000. Hearst got at least as good a deal as Ochs and each man bought the right paper for his purposes. 14
The Morning Journal was a good fit for Hearst not only for its price—which left him with funds to invest in its improvement—but also because of its heritage, which was both mass market and Democratic. There was nothing in its past to prevent its new owner from making it a popular progressive daily. “The reason I bought the Journal, ” Hearst later told Printer’s Ink, “was because of its large circulation. It had very much more circulation than the other papers that were offered me. I thought it would be easier to change the reputation, and make that good, than to take a paper with a good reputation and little or no circulation, and build it up.” 15
Hearst rated the day he and McLean agreed to terms among the happiest of his life. He had been studying, plotting, aching for an opportunity in New York for at least six years. He had persisted through the competitive pressures of San Francisco, through loss and upheaval in his own family, and through the economic panic of 1893. Now his dream was finally in hand. Never one for big emotional displays, he reportedly danced a little jig and rushed down to Park Row to survey the field of play.
Park Row, at least the newspaper portion of it, was a brief street in lower Manhattan reaching northeast from Broadway and Ann to Nassau Street and Printing House Square with its statue of Benjamin Franklin, patron saint of American publishing. City Hall and its grassy park occupied the west side. Most of the important dailies in New York fought for air in a jumble of buildings on the east. The Sun, the Mail and Express, the Commercial Advertiser, the Daily News, the World, the Morning Journal, the Times, and the Tribune