March 10, 1933 The .Man of The Times By BERNARD POSTAL

Adolph S. Ochs, greatest newspaper builder of proudly enrolled as a printer's devil on the paper was not merely a commercial and edi- our time, is celebrating his 75th birthday as well Knoxville Chronicle. In 1875 he left Knox- as his golden wedding. Mr. Postal former Ex- torial undertaking, but a public institution. change Editor of the New York Times, contributes ville intending to go to California, his sole Imbued with the ambition of building such a this informative appraisal of Mr. Ochs and his assets being testimonials from leading citizens paper in New York City, he came to the great EDITOR. work-THE of the city. Relatives, however, persuaded metropolis in 1896 to consider an invitation to him to remain in Louisville, where he obtained become the business manager of the New York The greatest journalistic achievement of work on Marse Henry Watterson's great pa- Mercury. While modern times was the rise of the New York per, the Louisville Courier-Journal, as a nothing came of this invita- Times from bankruptcy to the unquestioned printer's apprentice. After a few months he tion, his visit enabled him to learn something newspaper leadership of America and perhaps returned to Knoxville and became a composi- about the difficulties which the New York of the world, in less than a generation. The tor on the Daily Tribune, on which he served Times was then experiencing. The Times had master-mind responsible for this miracle is successively as assistant foreman, reporter, been one of the great papers of America and Adolph Simon Ochs, who, on the threshold of assistant business manager and in other ex- its fame had grown since its famous exposure his 75th birthday, and at the end of nearly 55 ecutive positions. of the Tweed Ring. In 1893 it had been years of active newspaper work, re- bought by a syndicate of prominent mains the embodiment of the New citizens whose inexperience, together York Times, with its vast ramifi- with the financial panic plunged the cations spreading as a net-work over paper into bankruptcy within three the entire world, and a staff of 3,500 years. men and women who help to make It was at this time that Mr. Ochs his paper a powerful world factor was asked to join in a proposed re- for good and the spread of enlight- organization of the paper. Realiz- enment. ing the unusual opportunity that The antecedents of this mild, quiet was presenting itself, he undertook and gentle newspaper publisher who the task although he did not have shuns the limelight with the journal- the capital to secure controlling in- ist's characteristic dislike for per- terest for himself. Tendered a salary sonal publicity are as fascinating as of $50,000 a year to manage the pro- the astonishing severity of his posed reorganized company, he de- struggles for success and his cour- clined the offer because he believed ageous and triumphant achievement that if he tried to manage the paper in building the great organ of public for somebody else the effort would education and public opinion that end "in the speedy disappearance we know as the New York Times. of the job, the salary and the Times." He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on March 12, 1858, the oldest of six - Eventually it was arranged that children. His father Julius Ochs, MR. AND MRS. ADOLPH S. OCHS he should reorganize the paper on a was a native of Bavaria, where his basis which would assure him the ancestors lived for several centuries. They When the publisher of the Tribune decided controlling interest. By pooling his capital and resources were devout, cultured Jews, many of them to establish the Chattanooga Dispatch in 1877, he raised $75,000 in cash, and for he took the 19-year-old Ochs along as a general this sum noted as Talmudic students, scholars, musi- he was to receive within a period of assistant. When the Dispatch went into bank- ten years, 51% of the reorganized cians and merchants. Adolph's father came to stock, if and ruptcy, Ochs was appointed receiver and after when, for three consecutive years, he made America in 1844, at the age of 18. Well edu- liquidating some of its debts managed to ar- the paper pay expenses. Within three years cated and speaking German, French, English, range a merger with the Chattanooga Times, and ten months from the day he signed this and Hebrew, he earned a livelihood In this ven- Spanish which he bought three years later. agreement (August 18, 1896), the control and as a teacher of French. In 1848 he enlisted in ture he displayed the remarkable ingenuity ownership of the New York Times were his. the Mexican War and after his discharge be- and business ability that was later to bring Since he took over the New came an accountant. During the Civil War greater success with the New York Times. York Times Adolph Ochs has made it he served as an officer in the Union Army and Ochs had already achieved some fame in Chat- more than a news- tanooga by reviving the Chattanooga Direc- paper. Under his guidance it has become a at the close of the war he settled in Knoxville, world-wide institution. It was he who redis- where he was for many years a tory, which he printed on a foot-driven press; Tennessee, covered the fact that a newspaper's chief and justice of the peace. For a time he served as and he made money on it. Soon he decided to acquire the Chattanooga Times although he perhaps sole function is to give the news. But rabbi of the Knoxville Jewish community lay was practically penniless. He finally reached to him news did not mean sensation. "All the to the Greeley Re- and in 1872 was a delegate an agreement that gave him a controlling in- the News That's Fit To Print" has become mother, also a publican convention. Adolph's terest in the paper for $250 together with the more than a slogan. The subscriber of the Bavarian, was a descendant on her father's assumption of a debt of $1,200 which was to Times is unlikely to miss anything for which side of many noted Frenchmen. She was edu- be paid back at the rate of $50 a month. On he looks. By virtue of the fact that the Times of 17 she covers cated at Heidelberg, but at the age a note for $300 a bank lent him $287 in cash, all the news, completely, thoroughly and was sent to an uncle in New Orleans because of which $250 was paid. as the purchase price, at great length, no one has ever read the whole of her revolutionary sympathies. She. was an and $25 as a debt to the Associated Press. His paper daily and no one ever will. ardent Southern sympathizer and had a num- working capital was thus $12! This unique and constructive achievement Confederate army des- ber of kinsmen in the What he lacked in cash he made up in work, in giving Americans a newspaper free of sen- pite the fact that her husband was a Union all around work. He was at once proof read- sationalism and immature features but replete officer. er, publisher, business, circulation and adver- with the complete daily history of the world When Adolph was seven his family moved tising manager, foreman, reporter and book- has won for Mr. Ochs unusual distinction. Yale to Knoxville, where at the age of 11 he became keeper. In a cubby-hole 40 feet long and 20 University, Columbia University, University of a carrier boy for the Chronicle. He held this feet wide he printed his paper on power sup- Chattanooga and New York University have job for five years and then went to Providence, plied by a Negro. In two years his half share honored him with degrees. Two years ago he Rhode Island, where he was cash boy in an was worth $6,000. Within a short time, he received the annual gold medal of the National uncle's grocery store while he attended War- made the Chattanooga Times, which he still Institute of Social Sciences for outstanding ner's Business College at night. In 1871 he owns, one of the most influential and success- public service. France has made him a coin- returned to Knoxville and was apprenticed to ful daily newspapers in the South. mander of the Legion of Honor. a druggist, but after a few months he returned It was in Chattanooga that he first developed Although his 59 years of newspaper work to school, remaining in the primary grade of his idea of what a great newspaper ought to have been exacting Mr. Ochs has not forgotten the East Tennessee University for a year. But be. By experimenting with the Chattanooga his Jewish heritage. As a son-in-law of the when he was 15 the die was cast and he was Times he came to the realization that a news- (Continued on page 23)