(This work has been selected by scholars as being cultural...)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
(Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is ...)
Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http:www.archive.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology.
Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writings. Careful attention has been made to accurately preserve the original format of each page whilst digitally enhancing the aged text. Read books online for free at www.forgottenbooks.org
(Excerpt from The Book of Today
Millions of men on this e...)
Excerpt from The Book of Today
Millions of men on this earth remember distinctly the past fifty years, and their fathers remembered fifty years farther back. The hundred years behind us have seen a complete change in the ways of human beings and in the World's methods. The stage coach went, steam cars and steamboats came in.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
Arthur Brisbane was an American newspaper editor and writer. He was the highest paid United States newspaper editor of his day.
Background
Arthur Brisbane was born on December 12, 1864 in Buffalo, New York, the fourth among five children and third of four sons of the social reformer Albert Brisbane and his first wife, Sarah White.
Descended from the earliest American Brisbanes who arrived from Scotland about 1730, Arthur's grandfather, James Brisbane, a native of Philadelphia, helped to settle Batavia, New York, where he became a merchant and prominent landowner.
Albert Brisbane, visionary and propagator of the ideas of Fourier, was well educated and extensively traveled in Europe. His son Arthur passed a helter-skelter boyhood in New York, Brooklyn, and Fanwood, New Jersey, in an atmosphere of books, theorizing, and discussion but without his mother, who died when he was two years old.
Redelia Bates Brisbane, who became the boy's stepmother when he was eleven, brought order to the chaotic household.
Education
Arthur attended school in Brooklyn. His mother, Redelia Bates Brisbane, also arranged for him to study languages, literature, and history in France and Germany between his thirteenth and nineteenth years.
Career
Arthur Brisbane grew so absorbed in newspaper work that his parents, fearing harm to his health, took him to Europe. But when Arthur wrote to Dana about his new experiences, the editor forthwith designated him as the Sun's correspondent in London (1885). Impressed by Brisbane's energy and news sense, Dana soon brought him back to New York as the Sun's night editor.
After the Evening Sun was launched in 1887, Brisbane edited it with Amos J. Cummings and employed such promising writers as Richard Harding Davis and Jacob A. Riis. His achievements were the talk of Park Row, and in 1890 Joseph Pulitzer induced him to join the New York World. Brisbane was then twenty-five years old.
Serving first as a European traveling companion for the publisher, in which capacity he was both tested and indoctrinated in Pulitzer's policies, Brisbane was soon transferred to the World staff as a reporter. For seven years he was one of Pulitzer's most valued lieutenants. He wrote feature articles and edited first one edition and then another, including finally the entire Sunday World with the exception of the editorial page. Brisbane took over the Sunday World in January 1896, when Morrill Goddard, who had been its editor, left to join the New York Journal, recently purchased by the young William Randolph Hearst.
Goddard had pioneered many of the features of the later Sunday newspaper, including colored comic pages and "freak" feature stories with splashy illustrations, and these devices he carried over to the Journal. Brisbane continued them on the World. The ensuing battle for readers soon led to excesses of sensationalism that caused both newspapers to be excluded from many homes and clubs. This hostility to the World alarmed Pulitzer, who placed stern restrictions on Brisbane's operations.
After Brisbane defiantly launched a front-page column of personal comment in the Evening World in Pulitzer's absence, the publisher telegraphed him to stop expressing his opinions in print. Displeased by these limitations, Brisbane went over to Hearst in 1897 as editor of the Journal. On the Journal Brisbane applied to the daily edition the spirit and many of the techniques of the Sunday edition.
His new contract added to his pay of $150 a week a bonus of a dollar for each additional thousand of circulation. Starting work at 4:30 a. m. , he put a sensationalized Journal onto the streets hours ahead of other afternoon newspapers. In only seven weeks the Journal's circulation, which had been but 40, 000, caught up with the Evening World's 325, 000, a feat that amazed the newspaper profession. On the World Brisbane had favored pacification in the crisis with Britain over Venezuela, but he now enthusiastically joined Hearst in magnifying the differences with Spain over the insurrection in Cuba. Fighting for readers, the World followed suit, and the resulting frenzy of sensational stories and jingoist propaganda did much to bring on the Spanish-American War.
Inflammatory reports of atrocities, many of them entirely false, sent the Journal's circulation to the million mark and Brisbane's compensation to $50, 000 annually. With tireless zeal the editor deployed sensation-seeking staff members to the area of hostilities, prepared smashing headlines for printing in red ink, and typed out incendiary editorials on the sinking of the battleship Maine and related developments.
For this degradation of the press, Hearst rewarded the chief perpetrator with a $70, 000-a-year contract. Brisbane provided the driving industry, the appeal to mass tastes, the surface learning, showmanship, and adjustable conscience that the ambitious publisher wanted in his editor. Adapting his news techniques to the editorial page, Brisbane instituted striking changes in its appearance and content. To attract attention he devised large cartoon illustrations, drawn for years by Winsor McKay and later by Hal Coffman. These were pictorial symbols for his simply written editorials, set in large type with wide columns, frequently paragraphed.
His editorials carried arresting titles: "What the Bartender Sees, " "Have Animals Souls?" "Crime is Dying Out, " and "When a Girl Makes a Mistake. " There was point as well as wit in the punster's tag "brisbanalities"; while David Starr Jordan coined "sciosophy" as the word for Brisbane's "systematized ignorance, acquired without labor or pain" that "keeps the mind from melancholy". Reversibility became a leading Brisbane characteristic.
He had unreserved denunciation for the League of Nations and the World Court. He gave Harding, Coolidge, and Landon extravagant praise and, after calling for the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, condemned the Roosevelt program as "the Raw Deal. "
Extending first to other Hearst newspapers, Brisbane's editorial column, "Today, " begun in 1917, was eventually syndicated to 200 dailies and about 1200 weeklies. In many cities it was a front-page feature. Early in his professional life and again late, Brisbane was assigned by Hearst to direct other newspapers in the publishing chain.
In 1900 he was sent to Chicago to take charge of the new American, and in 1934 he was put in command at the tabloid New York Mirror. Returning to his old devices, he issued in the Mirror of the mid-1930's what even Hearst called "the worst newspaper in America". Brisbane bought the Washington (D. C. ) Times in 1917 and in 1918 the Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin, Daily News, and Free Press, which he consolidated as the Wisconsin News.
He sold both to Hearst in 1919. He also owned briefly the Newark Star-Eagle and had an interest in the Elizabeth (New Jersey) Daily Times.
Brisbane operated three dictaphones--at his office, at home, and in his automobile--although an associate, Stanley Walker, regarded this "impressive paraphernalia" as "largely window dressing" to mark him as a "high-powered and scientific executive. "
His large salary enabled him to invest heavily in profitable properties, including valuable real estate, which was a favorite subject in his newspaper writings. He foresightedly purchased New Jersey land toward which the Hudson River tubes would extend. In Manhattan, he bought along the prospective East River Drive and in an area bounded by Madison and Park Avenue and 57th and 59th Street. He built the Ritz Tower building and with Hearst the Ziegfeld Theatre. Also with Hearst he owned a group of New York hotels.
His home was on a 3000-acre estate at Allaire, New Jersey, and he kept houses in Hempstead, Long Island, in the Catskills, and at Miami, Florida, where he passed his last winters. His income from his newspaper writings reached $260, 000 annually, but his returns from his business ventures grew even larger; for the year before his death (1935) his aggregate net from all sources was reported to be $1, 070, 000.
Giving close attention to his health and posture, Brisbane slept in an open penthouse, enjoyed amateur boxing and wrestling, and was an excellent horseman.
He was ill through much of his seventy-second year, which included a severe case of dysentery contracted in Italy. In December 1937 he suffered an undisclosed series of heart attacks over a period of three weeks. This confined him to his Fifth Avenue apartment but did not halt his dictating until the day before his death. Typical Brisbane grist, this last daily column commented on the "steady progress" in a "world of war, cruelty and sorrow, " on Negroes in Soviet Russia, on his own farming efforts, and on horses. Funeral services were held at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, Manhattan, and at his New Jersey estate, where burial took place on a knoll overlooking the Atlantic. Brisbane's had been an unparalleled career in journalism.
He died in Manhattan on Christmas Day, December 25, 1936 and was buried in the Batavia Cemetery at Batavia, New York.
His rule was to use short words that could be readily understood. If his subject was complicated, he gave the appearance of clarifying it, although the result of his terse dogmatism often was gross oversimplification. He supported woman suffrage, criticized trusts as calculated to drive trade unions into politics, and denounced politicians generally as self-servers. He foretold the trend in the automobile industry and also the development of air travel. Even more he specialized in homilies on such topics as religion, debt, drink, gambling, prize fighting, sleep, child care, self control, justice, and imagination.
After attacking President McKinley so viciously that he even invited his readers to reflect on the merits of political assassination, Brisbane professed deepest admiration for the "beloved leader" when an assassin's bullet took McKinley's life. Brisbane piled such bitter criticism on Wilson in World War I that the editor was called "pro-German, " "slacker, " and "traitor"; then on December 4, 1918, he told a Senate committee that he had strongly supported the war effort.
If he did the thinking for more Americans than anyone before him, his dogmatic interpretation of the news, although topical and provocative, was often shallow, frequently contradictory, and sometimes misleading. Leaving a fortune estimated at $8, 000, 000 and esteemed by business and political leaders, he had departed far from the ideals of his socialist father. All efforts to develop a successor failed, and at last William Randolph Hearst himself briefly undertook to provide a daily column of comment (1940 - 42) for the space in which he had so long exhibited his most glittering star.
Quotations:
A 1926 Time magazine cover story described his influence like this:
"The New York American, the Chicago Herald-Examiner, the San Francisco Examiner and many another newspaper owned by Publisher Hearst, to say nothing of some 200 non-Hearst dailies and 800 country weeklies which buy syndicated Brisbane, all publish what Mr. Brisbane has said. His column is headed, with simple finality, "Today, " a column that vies with the weather and market reports for the size of its audience, probably beating both. It is said to be read by a third of the total United States population. Obviously this is an exaggeration, but half that many would be some 20 million readers, "Today" and every day. "
His final spoken words were a favorite quotation from Voltaire: "All is for the best in the best of possible worlds. "
Personality
Arthur Brisbane was a hand-some youth, adaptable to the point of feeling at ease anywhere. When he returned home he had the manners and habits of a proper young European.
His personality was complex and contradictory. Depending on circumstances or the company he was in, he was companionable or abrupt, affable or cold, generous or niggardly, idealistic or cynical. Other descriptions applied to him included: shrewd, snobbish, impatient, and impetuous. Brisbane was a notable success as a business man.
Quotes from others about the person
At his death, Hearst said, "I know that Arthur Brisbane was the greatest journalist of his day, " and Damon Runyon said "Journalism has lost its all-time No. 1 genius. "
Hearst biographer W. A. Swanberg describes Brisbane as "a one-time socialist who had drifted pleasantly into the profit system. .. in some respects a vest-pocket Hearst -- a personal enigma, a workhorse, a madman for circulation, a liberal who had grown conservative, an investor. "
Connections
Brisbane did not marry until July 30, 1912, when he was forty-seven, and then it was to the daughter of a cousin, Phoebe Cary, to whom he had been devoted since her girlhood. The union produced six children: Seward, Sarah, Emily, Hugo, Alice, and Elinor.