PRIZES OF THE AMERICAN PRESS

Western Star, Issue 1353, 11 May 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

PRIZES OF THE AMERICAN PRESS

The glittering prizes that may be won by ambitious writers for the New York papers can be seen to-day by looking into the embellished quarters of the leading editors of the City. Almost all the men who now enjoy fame and fortune hereabout as masters of the press have risen from the ranks of poorly paid scribblers, whose notes are so often recounted in long metre and short. I venture to say that the proportion of our aspirants in this vocation who se cure Buccess is as great as it is in any other line of life whatever, including even stock-jobbery, land speculation, railroad-building, or tenement raising. I am aware that this assertion will be challenged, but the more fully it is looked into by those who kno\. T the press of New York the more surely will it stand beyond dispute. Take but a few facta like unto many others of the kind that might be given (says a writer in the Chicago Times), I knew Whitelaw Reid when, in his maturity, he lived on a small stipend as the Washington correspondent of the Cincinnati Gazette. He is now OWNER OB 1 THE NEW YuRK " TRIBUNE,' proprietor of its tall "tower" in City Hall Square, gnd a millionaire who dwells in a palace that belongs to himself. I knew E. L. Grodkin, a mm of Irish birtb, when he drew his pittance of £6 a week as a writei for the Times. He is now the proprietary editor of the Evening Post, and enjoys an income from it higher than that of moct of the lords of Ireland. I first saw Charles A. Dana when he was a writer on the Tribune under Horace Greeley. He is now the dictator of the New York Sun, the owner of a lovely island on tbe Sound, where he resides in the snmmer, the proprietor of a city mansion in which he lives like a prince, and had the happiness a few days ago of interviewing the Pope in the Vatican j knew Joseph Pulitzer ten or twelve yearß ago, when he was getting but a limited reward for the manuscripts b. 3 sent to the Sun. He is now the OWNER OP THE NEW YORK " WORLD, " a millionaire many times over, and lfe3 author of newspaper projects that are

bewildoring in their range and magnitude. From the time that he was a private soldier in the Union army till he became a writer for the press, and up to this time his career has been lively. I knew his younger brother, Albert Pulitzer, when he was a clever reporter for the Herald. He is now the owner of the New York Morning Journal, wh ch has enriched him far beyoud the hopes that grew in his brain ten years ago. I know George Jonep, who, however, did not boast of his manuscripts when he had no notion of the fortune that has enabled him to raise the gron Jest newspaper edifice in the world. In THE NEW TOKK " TIMES " he dow possesses wealth beyond the dreams of avarice Two years ago Robert P. Port9r was a writer who had no conception of what the fast-revolv-ing suns were to bring forth for him Hn is no% owner and editor of the New York Press, a daily paper that bears the impress of a powerful hand, and is surely at the beginning of a great career, Then there is Oswald Ottendorfer, who formerly made lean bills as a reporter, bnt who is now the owner of the New York Stoats Zeitung, through his marriage to the wealthy widow of its founder. As to the New York Herald, that came to its present affluent proprietor by inheritance from his energetic sire, who began his career in New York as a poor slave of the pen.