CHARLES H. JONES, 1848-1913: EDITOR AND PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRAT By Thomas S. Graham © Copyright by Thomas S. Graham 1974 A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE COUNCIL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 1973 ' I? ACKNOWLEDGMENTS i with few inter- |: From 1869 until 1897 Charles H. Jones was, §•- publications. Between | ruptions, editing one or more periodical and many I 1868 and 1907 he wrote or edited more than a dozen books |!.v carried on a wide cor- I- magazine articles. In addition to this he fc ' political or § respondence with personal friends, relatives, and § ' present-day researcher is I business associates. As a result the !•' published and unpublished I . confronted with a formidable amount of I I information relating to his life and career. !•' indebted': to many individuals and institutions for I I am ' : "•,' S- • :. : s. .- locating and making available these materials. I I their help in 2V I also owe a debt of thanks to the people who gave advice and encour- f> *$' Freeman, U- agement in the preparation of this study. Mrs. Carl G. si- Bat Cave, North Carolina, granddaughter of Charles H. Jones, graciously permitted me to use the Charles H. Jones Papers which are in her possession. Mr. Richard A. Martin of Jacksonville made available Xerox copies of most of the material in the Jones Papers and helped to initiate this project. Professor Julian Rammelkamp of Albion College pointed out several sources relat- ing to Jones' career in Missouri journalism and offered many suggestions relating to interpretation. of I wish to thank Miss Elizabeth Alexander and the staff the staff the P. K. Yonge Library of Florida History, as well as ii . of the University of Florida Research Library, for their assistance. Mr. Sherman L. Butler, Interlibrary Loan Librarian, provided inval- uable aid in locating and securing numerous rare published items and a large number of microfilmed newspapers. I would also like to thank the staffs of the following libraries: Haydon Burns Library, Jacksonville; Florida State Library, Tallahassee; Joint • jjjjiv Universities Library, Nashville; Chicago Public Library; Washing- H'; U ton University Library, St. Louis; Missouri Historical Society Library, St. Louis; and St.- Louis Public Library. Copies of the St. Louis Mirror were made available by the Carol McDonald Gardner Rare Book Room, St. Louis Public Library. I am grateful to the members of my graduate committee, Professors Samuel Proctor, E. A. Hammond, Lyle N. McAlister, Ancil N. Payne, Claude C. Sturgill, and Manning J. Dauer for their sug- gestions and evaluations. My committee chairman Samuel Proctor is due particular thanks for his counsel and criticism and for his judicious editing of the manuscript. *1; *£ : iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii ABSTRACT • v CHAPTER I A GEORGIA BOY ON PARK ROW 1 NOTES TO CHAPTER I '• • 19 II FROM LITERARY GENTLEMAN TO NEWSPAPER EDITOR ... 23 NOTES TO CHAPTER II 45 III INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM 50 NOTES TO CHAPTER III 73 IV EDITOR AS POLITICIAN 79 NOTES TO CHAPTER IV 115 V FLORIDA'S GREATEST NEWSPAPER 125 • 17 5 NOTES TO CHAPTER V • • VI SPOKESMAN FOR WESTERN DEMOCRACY 188 254 NOTES TO CHATPER VI . • VII THE SECOND DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 270 312 NOTES TO CHAPTER VII r 323 VIII EPILOGUE • NOTES TO CHAPTER VIII 327 BIBLIOGRAPHY 328 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 339 iv Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate Council of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy CHARLES H. JONES, 1848-1913: EDITOR AND PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRAT By Thomas S. Graham June, 1973 Chairman: Dr. Samuel Proctor Major Department: History The present study is an examination of the life and career of Charles H. Jones. Born in Talbotton, Georgia, before the Civil War, Jones went to New York after the end of that conflict in 1865. He became a contributor to several popular magazines, editor of the Eclectic and co-editor of Appleton's Journal , and a writer and editor for D. Appleton Company and Henry Holt. He came to Florida in 1881 and established the Jacksonville Florida Daily Times , merging it with the Jacksonville Daily Florida Union in 1883 to form the Jacksonville Florida Times -Union . He was active in state and national politics and also took part in the formation of the National Editorial Association and the American Newspaper Publishers Association. In 1887 he became part-owner and editor of the St. Louis Republic . He left the Republic in 1893, becoming editor of the New York World , and then, from 1895 to 1897, the editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch . During this time he remained active in politics, both on the state and national levels. He drafted the Democratic platforms of 1892, 1896, and 1900. He was a correspondent of both Grover Cleveland and William Jennings Bryan. This study is based on the publications written or edited by Jones, other contemporary publications, and considerable manuscript material, including the Charles H. Jones papers. This study examines Jones' involvement in the intellect- ual, social, political, and business questions of the second half of the 19th century. It is particularly concerned with newspaper history, partisan politics, and major political issues. vi CHAPTER I A GEORGIA BOY ON PARK ROW The town of Talbotton lies northeast of Columbus in the clay hills of Georgia. In antebellum days it was a small but bright and prosperous community of well kept homes surrounded by vegetable and flower gardens. Being the county seat and the only town in the area it was a center of social life and education. It was there that Charles Henry Jones was born on March 7, 1848. His mother Susan Eleanor Jones was the daughter of Stephen Greene, a cousin of General Nathanael Greene, of Revolutionary War fame, and a cotton buyer in Savannah for a New England mill. Charles's father was George Washington Jones, son of a Delaware farmer, who was a dentist and part-time physician for a health resort at nearby Warm Springs. George W. Jones was a dark and laconic man, aloof from his children and rigid in his ideas about family order. He had come to Savannah where he met and married his wife. Later he moved to Albany, where his first son James was born. In 1884 the family moved to Talbotton where a daughter Mary was born, followed by Charles, 2 a daughter Sidonia, and another son George. Susan Jones was a serious, diminutive woman of such poor health that she was confined to her home for many years of Charles Jones's childhood. She was intelligent and cultivated. and was very active in the local Episcopal church. Of her Jones would later write: "She was in many respects the most remarkable woman I have known, and she was so much to me that it is hard for me to analyze or discriminate. She trained my mind and moulded my character. To her more than to all other human beings, more than to all other influences combined, I am indebted for what I am, for what I have been, and for what I have done in the world." J According to Jones's account of his education, he learned to point out the twenty-six letters of the alphabet in his father's prayer book before he could speak, and by the age of four he was studying geography, arithmetic, grammar, and history. Part of his lessons involved recitation of long passages memorized verbatim from the text of school books. His mother demanded that he master these lessons with perfection, seldom offering encouragement or praise. At an age when most children are just beginning to learn to read, he had a tutor, first for Latin and then Greek. At the age of eleven he was enrolled as a day student at Collingsworth Institute, a boarding school for boys located in Talbotton. Because of the thorough education that he had received at home the teachers at Collingsworth set up a special course for him and one other advanced student. Despite the demands of his studies, Jones used his spare time to read every book that he could borrow. Sir Walter Scott was the popular southern poet and novelist of that day, but Jones also read Goldsmith, Bunyan, Defoe, and any book of history or biography that he could lay his hands on. "Drum and trumpet" histories were his favorite. An effort was made to enroll him at the University of Georgia at age thirteen, Jones recalled, but he was refused because of his youth. The austere educational regime imposed by his mother, combined with the absence of fatherly affection, had, as Jones later realized, "a lasting influence upon my character, affect- ing my conduct, my attitude towards others, even my views of life. One result of this attitude of both my parents has been that during all my life it has been difficult for me to give expression to my feelings in the customary ways. A reserve, a reticence, a habit of self-repression has always held me back, even when I was conscious of it and tried to overcome it."-' Whether from his family life or from the praise he gained because of his early precociousness, Jones developed other lasting traits of character. The "instinct of competition," the drive to excel at every undertaking was apparent in him from his youth. Combined with this striving for success was a desire that it be rewarded with recognition, and even in childhood "gratification of vanity" became a primary motivating force. Competition for success and thirst for praise were to be the theme of his life.