Obituary

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 84, 10 April 1935, Page 7

Obituary

MR ADOLPH S. OCHS. United Press Association. —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright. NEW YORK, April 8. Mr Adolph S. Ochs, publisher of tho New York Times, died suddenly at Chattanooga of cerebral hemorrhage, He was 77 years of age.

Fifty-seven years ago a curly-hcadcd youth of twenty, working in a oucstorcy brick shed in an obscure American town, resolved that one day he would publish tho world’s best newspaper. If he had told his friends of his ambition they would probably have laughed at him, for his total capital was £3. The ramshackle little journal he had taken over as liquidator was loaded with debt. Ilis plant was almost falling to pieces, and his motive power was—a single negro. But this young visionary had brains, plenty of confidence, and an iron constitution. He employed a retired colonel to write leading articles at 30s a week. He himself slaved night and day as manager, publisher, proofreader, foreman printer, reporter, and bookkeeper, and little by little the paper began to go. The youth quickly paid off his debts. Ho threw himself heart and soul into the activities of the town. He became known for miles around as a young man with a future.

He had indeed a future. For the young man was Adolph S. Ochs. The rest of his career can be quickly lold. By the time he was thirty-eight he had made a fortune out of the Chattanooga Times—the paper that started in a shed—and set: out to repeat his triumphs in the wider world of New York. He found in the New York Times an instrument ready to his hand. It was a jiapcr of high principles, it was in low water. It had a reputation for honesty and fearlessness, but its revenue was smaller than that of any other paper in the city. Once more young Ochs learned what it was to work all day and most of the night. Competition was severe, and his rivals were wealthy and well established. But the years spent in Chattanooga, though the atmosphere was provincial and everyday problems -were simpler, had tempered his qualities and taught him what he could do. New York quickly began to realise that a new power had arisen. Ochs’s immense energy, his foresight, his firstclass news-sense, and his genius for organisation brought scoop” after “scoop.” The paper was the first to receive news by wireless. It was the first to publish the pliotogravuro supplements. It erected immense offices, and gave its name to one of the most famous squares in New York. It was enterprising in all it did, and ill it wanted a thing it determined to have it. It spent £IOOO once in order to print a speech by Lenin. And so the struggle went on, year after year, until the Times, which had started at the bottom of the ladder, at last stood firmly on the topmost rung, 1111-. Ochs was the apostle of clean journalism in a land where journalism is often corrupt. He was a true friend of Britain and an arden worker for international peace. No man did more lo promote the best in life.

Mr A. H. M. Feez SYDNEY, April 9. The death occurred suddenly of Mr Arthur Herman Henry Milford Freez, K.C., B.A. (N.S.W.), of Sydney.

The late Mr Freez was a grandson of Mr Justice Milford. He was born 05 years ago at Rockhampton, Queensland, and was educated at the King’s School, Parramatta, and at Sydney University. He was called (o the Bar in ISSI and was made a King’s Counsel in Queensland in 1908 and in New South Wales in 1925. Until 1925 he was chairman of the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting, Queensland.