Journalism and Early Political Career
Howe hoped to travel to Cuba to cover the 1898 Spanish–American War, but the war ended before he could secure a position with another paper. Not long after, the Howes' marriage ran into trouble as the financial difficulties of Howe's father again threatened the family's position. Grace's mother had given the couple a large house for a wedding present, which Louis mortgaged in an attempt to save his father's newspaper from bankruptcy. The Sun was nonetheless sold, and Louis fired in 1901, though he soon after successfully begged to return to his job. During this time, Grace went to live with her mother, where she gave birth to the couple's first child, Mary.
In 1903, after a failed attempt to make a living writing fiction, Howe submitted articles as a freelancer to the New York Herald and was a manager for a Saratoga club. In January 1906, Howe began covering the New York State Legislature in Albany for the Herald. Later that year, Howe was hired by Thomas Mott Osborne, a rich Democrat, as a political operative. Osborne was a member of the "Upstarters", a group opposed to the influence of the Tammany Hall political machine in New York politics. He employed Howe to oppose the gubernatorial candidacy of William Randolph Hearst, the Democratic nominee, newspaper magnate, and ally of Tammany. Howe and Osborne's other operatives successfully spread dissent and chaos among the Democratic campaign, and Hearst lost the election to Charles Evans Hughes.
Howe biographer Julie M. Fenster describes the anti-Hearst campaign as a "personal turning point" for Howe, in which he got his first taste of politics, learned the practical mechanics of party organization, and had an opportunity to make news rather than simply reporting it. He pursued a permanent position with Osborne, declining an opportunity to go to Jamaica as a correspondent for the Herald, and was hired in November 1906. For the next three years, Howe blended his two jobs—reporter and political operative—using information from each, at times, in service of the other. However, though Osborne intended to run for governor himself, his unusual propensity to travel in a variety of disguises and his close friendship with a young handyman, with whom Osborne was rumored to have a homosexual relationship, made him an nonviable candidate. Howe lost interest in Osborne as a patron and began searching for another upcoming name with whom to associate; Osborne fired him in 1909.
Read more about this topic: Louis Mc Henry Howe
Famous quotes containing the words journalism, early, political and/or career:
“In journalism it is simpler to sound off than it is to find out. It is more elegant to pontificate than it is to sweat.”
—Harold Evans (b. 1928)
“Quintilian [educational writer in Rome around A.D. 100] thought that the earliest years of the child’s life were crucial. Education should start earlier than age seven, within the family. It should not be so hard as to give the child an aversion to learning. Rather, these early lessons would take the form of play—that embryonic notion of kindergarten.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“Indiana was really, I suppose, a Democratic State. It has always been put down in the book as a state that might be carried by a close and careful and perfect organization and a great deal of—[from audience: “soap”Ma reference to purchased votes, the word being followed by laughter].
I see reporters here, and therefore I will simply say that everybody showed a great deal of interest in the occasion, and distributed tracts and political documents all through the country.”
—Chester A. Arthur (1829–1886)
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)