Enters Newspaper Work
During the summers and on Saturdays he did newspaper work of various kinds. The printing press and its product always had a great fascination for him. I am told he had from the first the natural instincts of a successful reporter and was exceedingly good at writing headlines. I asked him why he leaned so to the newspaper business, and he replied:
“My mother taught me that I should lead others,—that I should be a worker and a leader, rather than a loafer and a follower. Hence I went into school teaching, although doubtless I was glad to get a job of any kind. One day, however, I was impressed with the opportunity of becoming a much bigger teacher by reaching a great many more people thru a newspaper. It was with this idea that I went into newspaper work when the opportunity came and gave up the classroom.”
He was now twenty-one years old. He had reached the time when he must decide upon his life work. Mr. Baker tells me that he told the boy he should either be a school teacher or a newspaper man and not try to be both. Mr. Baker was apparently very strict with him and insisted that he should keep regular hours and apply himself closely to work. The boy loved to read and argue, which had a tendency to interfere with his daily tasks. He spent his Sundays either at church or amidst his books. He read the classics through and through. He loved biography and history. His friends tell me that he would read not only the best; but he would urge them to do likewise.
While James was teaching school, Baker had purchased the Middletown News-Signal. As already stated, the young man worked upon this at odd times. Now, however, he gave it all his time and served as reporter, make-up man and pressman or typesetter, as necessity called. In addition to working for the Middletown News-Signal, Cox was also a country correspondent for the Cincinnati Enquirer, the leading paper of that section.