The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 5

THE BOSTON DAILY GLOBE -SATURDAY, JULY 16, 1955 Five "You Have Held the Rudder of Our Craft 1921, at the death of his father, Gen Chas. 1 M. Taylor, the builder of the Globe, W. O. Taylor succeeded to leadership of the newspaper which that pioneering editor had developed, and he continued as head of the Globe organization until his death.

Even as he assumed his new responsibilities the country was entering upon a severe postwar recession which was to be followed by the financial madness of the late 1920's, the catastrophic depression of the '30s, the grim years of World War II and the current era of world-wide tensions and conflict, That long period brought to all American industry countless new and grave problems of management; and to the newspaper world especially came undreamedof demands upon its facilities, and an accompanying need for major adjustments in the techniques of mechanical production, of news-gathering, and of news presentation. To meet the problems of his times, William 0. Taylor was fortunately equipped with natural qualities of leadership and long years of training. Indeed, his apprenticeship in newspaper management began on the 0." as a Harvard senior in 1893 and (at right) a photograph taken 25 years later. day after his graduation from Harvard, in 1893; and he had known the Globe office long before that.

William Osgood Taylor was born Jan. 8, 1871, at Nashua, N. where his mother, Georgianna Olivia (Davis) Taylor, a Charlestown girl, was visiting with her grandparents. At that time the Taylor family home was in Somerville, but it was soon transferred to Charles Boston, within a short walk of the Globe Building. So while young William was usually "William or just to his intimates- -was a student at Boston Latin School, he was a familiar visitor to Newspaper Row.

As a boy he saw the small newspaper plant of the Globe's expand. Even The Story of William and His 34 Years of the the Chess Club. you may sink me if you will; but, whatever happens, I will hold my rudder open and unattended. Any passer-by could walk up to his desk, and even break into a business conference, as some did. Eventually a secretary intervened.

Yet this "open-door" policy never was wholly abandoned, and usually it was just about as easy for an utter stranger to talk with the top man at the Globe as it was for his business associates. This friendliness and accessibility was one of the secrets of his often disconcerting knowledge of what the world was talking and thinking about. Members of the editorial staff, whose job was to keep abreast of events, sometimes were stumped by the boss' probing questions questions that might be about a political issue of the moment, or a baseball record, the location of a copper mine in Vermont, or even about Biblical history, a field in which W. O. jocularly boasted profound knowledge based on his undergraduate courses at Harvard.

Chance conversations with strangers encountered on daily train rides to and from his long-time Summer home at Buzzards Bay often produced fruitful ideas for news and feature stories. Mr. Taylor had an inquiring and receptive mind. New ideas interested him. Yet he was not one to veer with every wind or to gamble on ill-considered judgments.

Those who knew him will not be surprised to learn that one of his extracurricular activities at Cambridge was as a member of early days gradually as youngster he occasionally lent a hand in distributing came in over the wires to the Globe's estimating room; papers to newsboys; and later he became a part of the perhaps now and again cautioning associates who Globe organization by helping to report yachting activi- might be overly eager to see conclusive results in figures ties at Marblehead. which did not in fact demonstrate them; watching into with his intimate knowledge of the Globe early morning hours to see that the Globe's reputation Along for accuracy was maintained. itself, young William O. Taylor brought with him to' the Globe office personal qualities that were to serve In his office he worked at a huge, old-fashioned him well in the years of his leadership. mahogany roll-top desk.

Its appearance, when open, He was a modest man. His name rarely appeared would have horrified any exponent of modern efficiency, in the columns of the Globe--yet his mark was on every for usually it was piled high with papers which W. O. of it. Nothing that went on in the Globe office was not yet ready to file where much of his mail was page his attention.

Though he was quick to dele- filed -in the wastebasket. escaped gate authority, and gave his executives unhampered Yet few business or professional men had a sharper opportunity for experimentation and the development knowledge of what came to his desk. His memory of ideas, it was his hand that always guided the ship amazed his associates; and members of the Globe orand kept it on a steady course. ganization who challenged it did so with great eauW. O.

was a friendly man. He enjoyed talking with tion, because they knew from experience that it was people -though often he did more listening than talk- far better than that of most of his juniors, ing. For many years, until unnecessary intrusions upon his time became too great, his office door was wide His method of dealing with problems and people was direct. To a subordinate who proposed an elaborate letter of explanation or exposition to some businessman or public official, W. O.

would say, "Don't write him; call him. Or go to see him and tell him." He believed that life, including the newspaper business, should be run by rules of the game. There' could be no cutting of corners with the law. He took no satisfaction in any business or news success of the moment which was achieved by sharp practice. He might listen to explanations or alibis, but it never took him long to decide the right or wrong of a case.

His associates never had to be uneasy about what the head of the house thought. W. O. told them. If he thought a job was well done, he said so.

If he thought a mistake had been made, he said so forcefully--yet always in such a way that he never left a festering wound. But you'd never make the same mistake twice, even if a rugged interview did end pleasantly. W. O. had a good sense of humor and a penetrating wit that often broke the tensions of serious business conferences.

Strangers waiting to see him, and wondering what sort of reception awaited them, frequently were reassured by the laughter emerging from his office. Yet he was so direct in his thinking and talking that those same persons commonly were startled in their first dealings with him. Salesmen accustomed to He liked to study the problems that faced him, to think things over. Often he'd say to an associate, "Let's take that up tomorrow or Monday." Then he'd tuck the matter away in a corner of his mind, to 1 be brought out for further thought perhaps when he was on the train, or after dinner, when he could give it considered attention with the help of a good cigar or his favorite corncob pipe. The cigar usually was smoked in a paper holder that became a sort of W.

O. trademark. Next day he'd have his decision ready--and his acquaintances could testify that his judgments usually proved to be wise ones. He took personal command in the editorial deapartment on election nights--studying the returns that smooth talking have admitted that, at first acquaintance, W. O.

had them actually frightened. When they same to appreciate the wholly impersonal quality of O. Taylor's Life as Publisher Boston Globe his frankness and the genuine friendliness of his nature, there was nobody they more enjoyed William O. Taylor's one ambition seemed to be to earry forward the job entrusted to him, and to pass on, as much stronger as he could make it, the newspaper institution that his father had left. For his own part in making the Globe what it is today, he expected no praise and asked no recognition.

A member of the Globe -organization once insisted that a famous Boston painter do a portrait of W. O. to hang in the Globe office. "Damn fool idea," said W. that was the end of it.

Many years ago he told a close associate: "My only ambition in life is to leave the Globe as strong and as well-liked a paper as when my father left it to me." "Tributes" would not have interested him, though he himself insisted that the Globe be quick to acknowledge merit in others. Yet he could not but take satisfaction in a letter of birthday greeting that he received from the late James Morgan of the Globe on his 81st birthday, "As you majored in Biblical literature at Harvard," wrote Morgan, who well knee what a twinkle that would bring to W. eye, "you may have missed the stern resolve that Seneca's boatman took in the face a gale: 'O, Neptune, you may save me if you will; "That is what you, William have done with the Globe and for all of us on board since you were called to the helm at the onset of a thirty-year storm, in the course of which you have not had a normai, quiet day "It has been no holiday erwise, but you have held the rudder of our craft true while we have watched newspapers all around us going down. Pulitzer's World, Dana's Sun, Bennett's Herald, are metropolitan aramples of a nation-wide wreckage which we of the Globe have escaped under your weatherwise, steady, panic-proof steering. "All the Globe family owe their gallant, modest leader an unpayable debt.

But if they brought their I U's to you on your birthday, that would only add to the paper shortage and give another boost to the price you have to meet for newsprint." Mr. Morgan was expressing the feelings of all his own Globe associates--for, to the men and women of the Globe, William O. Taylor was best known as a warm-hearted friend to whom they could turn for good counsel and aid in times of trial, and with whom they could share their joys and pleasures. He was a truly kindly man. He never advertised his broad sympathies, but a roll of the people he helped in times of need would be a long one.

Though the demands of business restricted his other activities, Mr. Taylor usually managed to find time for play. Until very recent years he could have been found frequently in the Summer months on some golf course on the Cape, His favorite spot was a little course at Pocasset, where he was for some years the club president. He was also a long-time member of The Country Club, Brookline. His boyhood love of yachting remained always with him, and was reflected in the volume of yachting news printed in the Globe.

In his active yachting days he was a charter member of the Pleon Yacht Club, and was a member of the Corinthian, Beverly and the Quincy Yacht Clubs. Though never much of a joiner, Mr. Taylor also belonged to several Boston organizations and continued as a member of the Algonquin and the Union Clubs until his death. For a great many years he never let a hunting season go by without getting away with a few close friends for two weeks at a camp in the Maine woods. But as the passing years called old companions away, that pleasant diversion was regretfully put aside.

Like many other busy men, William 0. often turned to light reading for recreation; and many of the mystery and adventure stories and the thrilling "Westerns" that have appeared in the Globe's Sunday fiction magazine were printed on his recommendation. Though the Globe was his chief lifetime work, Mr. Taylor had other long-time business interests that required his attention. One of the earliest tributes to his keen business judgment was his being named, while still a young man, by Eben D.

Jordan Jr. to be a trustee of the estate of that distinguished Boston merchant, music lover and publis benefactor, He had been a vice president of the Associated Press, president and director of the North American Newspaper Alliance, a director and vice president of the Associated Newspapers a director of the Bell Syndicate, and a director of the Metropolitan Group of Sunday newspapers, of which he was one of the founders. In recent years he had divested himself of many of those cares, but he continued as editor and publisher of the Globe, president and director of the Globe Newspaper Company, president of the Brooks Hospital, Brookline, and trustee of the estates of Chas. H. Taylor, Eben D.

Jordan and Robert Jordan. In most of his life Mr. Taylor was a resident of Boston. Here he married Mary Moseley, daughter of Edward Crehore and Ellen S. (Wheeler) Moseley, and here they spent a happy half-century together at their home in Beacon st.

Their Summer place was at Buzzards Bay, where Mrs. Taylor died May 24, 1944. Both Mr. and Mrs. Taylor were for years attendants of Trinity Church in Copley where Mrs.

Taylor had been active in its philanthropies. In recent years Mr. Taylor maintained a year-round residence at Marion, where even in the Winter he spent long week-ends, But most of the week he was regularly W. O. TAYLOR and James Morgan snapped by a Globe photographer outside the Globe office last 'year.

at his big roll-top desk on the first floor of the Globe office; and of an evening usually was to be found at his elub sitting in with old friends for a. session of bridge, his favorite game, or in his home reading or listening to a night ball game. Of the five children born to. Mr. and' Mrs.

Taylor, their first born, Moseley, died in 1952, and one daughter, Margaret, died in girlhood. Surviving are Mrs. N. S. Wyekoff Vanderhoef of Greenwich, and New York eity; Mrs.

Sewall H. Fessenden of Sherborn, and W. Davis Taylor of Marion. Mr. Taylor is also survived by a sister, Mrs.

Matthew C. Armstrong of Hampton, nine grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. THE GLOBE BUILDING has expanded since the days when young "Billy" Taylor used to come down to Newspaper Row after Boston Latin School classes 80 help distribute papers. W.O.'S DESK was an office mystery. But the publisher knew every last thing that was on the desk and he knew how and where to find it..