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By Root 504 0

attended public schools and graduated from high school at age fifteen. In keeping with family tradition, and to improve his health, he spent the next two years sailing around the world. The teenage wanderer wrote detailed descriptions of the exotic ports he visited and sent them to Greene’s Boston Post, which was impressed enough to publish them as a series. In 1877, he returned home, spent some time at prep school, then entered Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. After a year he transferred to Boston University, drawn to Boston by the lure of Newspaper Row.

After graduating he landed a job at the Boston Globe, where he worked under the tutelage of the editor and publisher, General Charles H. Taylor, a gregarious Civil War veteran. Grozier was paid ten dollars a week, which he at first considered an enormous sum. Then his ambition took hold. “It was soon raised to twelve, to fifteen, to eighteen dollars,” he recalled. “I wanted more money—because I needed it!” Despite his fondness for Taylor, an offer of twenty-five dollars a week sent Grozier across Newspaper Row to the Boston Herald to cover politics. He distinguished himself quickly, in part because he was able to accurately record the long-winded speeches of the day with his uncommon skill at shorthand. During the 1883 campaign for Massachusetts governor, Grozier so impressed the Republican candidate, George D. Robinson, that as soon as Robinson was elected he hired the young reporter as his personal secretary.

But the pull of newspapering was strong. Eighteen months later, Grozier moved to New York and became personal secretary to Joseph Pulitzer, the Hungarian-born editor of the New York World and a journalism legend in the making. Pulitzer pioneered a formula of compelling human-interest stories, social justice crusades, and sensational battles with William Randolph Hearst and the New York Journal. Under Pulitzer, the World became the most profitable and most copied newspaper in the nation. Edwin Grozier had a front-row seat, and he was in thrall to Pulitzer: “I never saw anyone to equal him. His mind was like a flash of lightning, illuminating the dark places.”

For six exhausting years, Edwin Grozier routinely worked eighteen- and twenty-hour days learning the newspaper business top to bottom. Pulitzer recognized and rewarded Grozier’s brains and drive with some of the most difficult jobs in New York newspapers. By twenty-eight, Grozier was city editor of the World, and six months later he was editor in chief and business manager of the Evening World and the Sunday World. He did so well boosting circulation that Pulitzer once handed him a bonus of one thousand dollars in gold coins. But Grozier wanted to captain his own ship. His fondest wish was to buy a newspaper in New York, but he did not want to break his bond with Pulitzer by competing against the World.

While vacationing in Boston in 1891, Grozier heard from friends that the Post was on the verge of collapse. It was everything he wanted, in a city he knew and loved, and just right for his meager price range. First, he sought out the Globe’s Taylor, who was second only to Pulitzer as a newspaper mentor. Grozier came to Taylor’s office seeking absolution.

“If you have even the slightest objection, General,” Grozier told him, “I won’t consider purchasing the paper.”

Taylor placed a hand on Grozier’s shoulder. “Go ahead, Mr. Grozier. I don’t mind in the least.” Smiling, Taylor added, “If you can gather up any of the crumbs that fall from the Globe’s table, you’re welcome to them.”

“Thank you, General,” Grozier replied. “But I want to warn you that I shan’t be satisfied with crumbs. If I can, I shall go after the cake, too!”

At first, even crumbs would have seemed a feast. Boston was crowded with newspapers. In addition to the Post and Globe, there were the Daily Advertiser, the Evening Record, the Herald, the Journal, the Telegraph, the Transcript, and the Traveler. Soon the Boston American would join the scene. While the Post had hemorrhaged money and readers, its competitors had grown entrenched