William D. Boyce - Business Enterprises

Business Enterprises

As Boyce traveled, he often started a newspaper wherever he went. His first venture into commercial publishing was compiling a city directory. He also worked briefly for a publisher in Columbus, Ohio, and a newspaper publisher in Kensington, Pennsylvania. He then boarded a train for Chicago and worked as a secretary and salesman for Western magazine. Restless again, he moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota, and sold advertisements for a publisher for a short time and then spent a month in Fargo, North Dakota, and Grand Forks, North Dakota. In Winnipeg, Manitoba, he and local resident James W. Steen co-founded The Commercial in 1881, a newspaper that lasted for 70 years. He sold his share of The Commercial to his partner in 1882 and returned to Fargo where he became a reporter. In December 1882, Boyce moved to Lisbon, North Dakota, where he bought the Dakota Clipper.

Beginning in December 1884, Boyce managed reporters and news releases at the "Bureau of Correspondence" at the six-month long World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition in New Orleans, Louisiana. Countries from all over the world sent displays. Boyce was responsible for providing news stories on events and displays to over 1,200 newspapers around the country. He returned to North Dakota after the Exposition concluded, but by early 1886 he had moved back to Chicago. He often returned in North Dakota for publishing business deals and deer- and duck-hunting vacations.

In Chicago, he founded the Mutual Newspaper Publishing Company in 1886 which provided advertisements and articles to over 200 newspapers. In 1887, he established the weekly Saturday Blade, an illustrated newspaper aimed at rural audiences and sold by thousands of newsboys—an innovation at the time. By 1892, the Saturday Blade had the largest circulation of any weekly newspaper in the United States. Boyce's detailed reports of his foreign travels provided articles for the Saturday Blade and were reprinted in books by Rand McNally. The success of the Saturday Blade spawned the W. D. Boyce Publishing Company, which Boyce used to buy or start several newspapers and magazines. In 1892 Boyce bought out the Chicago Ledger, a fiction weekly. In January 1903 he founded the international Boyce's Weekly, which advocated worker's rights. Boyce's prominence as a supporter of labor attracted labor leaders such as John Mitchell and Henry Demarest Lloyd as writers and editors for Boyce's Weekly. Eight months later, Boyce's Weekly was consolidated with the Saturday Blade. Boyce also established the newspapers Farm Business in 1914 and Home Folks Magazine in 1922. Dwindling sales led to the 1925 merger of the Blade and Ledger into the monthly Chicago Blade & Ledger, which was published until 1937. As Boyce's enterprises grew, he insisted on looking after the welfare of about 30,000 delivery boys, who were key to his financial success. Working with them may have helped him gain an understanding of America's youth. Boyce felt that delivering and selling newspapers taught a youth important responsibilities such as being polite, reading human nature, and handling money. Boyce's focused determination was evident in the advice he gave to young men: "There are many obstacles to overcome, but toil, grit and endurance will help you to overcome them all. Help yourself and others will help you." and "... whatever trade you have selected; never swerve from that purpose a single moment until it is accomplished".

In 1891, Boyce began working on his own 12-story office building at 30 North Dearborn, known as the Boyce Building, it was designed by Henry Ives Cobb. Even 20 years later, this building was recognized as the most expensive building (in terms of dollars per cubic foot) in Chicago. In 1907, Boyce consolidated his business operations into another office building, also known as the Boyce Building, at 500–510 North Dearborn. A new four-story office building—designed by the architectural firm of Daniel Burnham—was built on this location in 1912 and expanded during 1913–14 with an additional six stories. This building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 29, 1996.

At a time when women had trouble finding work and workers were often oppressed, Boyce felt their rights were important: his businesses employed many women and he supported labor unions. His newspapers often carried stories about the "nobility of labor". His businesses were able to pay out wages and benefits during the Panic of 1893, a time when many businesses were laying off workers and cutting wages. During the Pullman Strike of the Pullman Palace Car Company in 1894, which spread to 20 companies in over half the states, Boyce called Eugene V. Debs, the socialist labor leader of the American Railway Union, a "great labor leader" and George Pullman, inventor of the sleeping car, the man "who caused all the trouble". In 1901 when the Boyce Paper Manufacturing Company in Marseilles, Illinois, burned down, he paid the workers immediately and then hired them as construction workers to rebuild the paper mill so they would not lose income. Yet, he was also protective of his money. In late 1894, when two of his workers were injured by a fallen smokestack and won $2,000 each in a court judgment, Boyce appealed the case all the way to the Supreme Court of Illinois, and lost. He was also persistent in getting what he wanted; in 1902 he sued the Marseilles Land and Power Company for not supplying enough water power to his mills and won a $65,300 judgment. In 1903 the Marseilles Land and Power Company fell into receivership and Boyce bought the company.

Boyce hired his son, Ben, when he was 20 years old, giving him high-level positions in his water and power businesses in and around Marseilles and Ottawa. However, their relationship was often strained by Boyce's high expectations and Ben's carelessness with his funds in activities such as betting on horse races.

During June–August 1906, the government proposed quadrupling the postage rate for second-class mail, which included newspapers, from one cent to four cents per pound. In response, Boyce proposed buying the Post Office Department for $300 million (USD), claiming that he would reduce postal rates by half, eliminate chronic deficits by applying business methods to postal operations, establish a rural postal express, pay rent to the United States Department of the Treasury for postal buildings, and return profits over seven percent. This offer was rejected by the government, but it did halt their planned second-class postage rate increase.

Boyce was a multi-millionaire by the early 1900s and by 1909 became more interested in civic affairs and less in finance. He also began to travel, often as part of hunting expeditions. He leased hunting lodges at Fort Sisseton, South Dakota, where he had hunted as a young man. He often hosted friends and relatives, especially his son, for activities such as hunting, fishing, dinner, poker, and plentiful liquor. These changes may have been in part caused by the destruction of his Ottawa mansion by fire in early 1908, which was soon rebuilt, followed three months later by the sale of his Marseilles paper mill due to a new law that prevented railroads from negotiating with shippers, and his September 1908 announcement that he and his wife, Mary Jane, were separating.

In 1914 Boyce bought two more newspapers, the Indianapolis Sun, which he renamed the Indianapolis Daily Times, and the Inter Ocean Farmer, which he renamed The Farming Business. By 1920, the majority of Americans lived in cities instead of rural areas. Lone Scout, Saturday Blade, and Chicago Ledger all focused on rural customers and began to falter. Boyce launched Home Folks Magazine in an attempt to regain customers. By June 1925, sales had slipped so much that he merged the latter two titles into the Blade and Ledger, which caused sales to rise again. This encouraged Boyce to start Movie Romances, one of the first tabloid magazines about movie star romances.

Boyce's success in the publishing business lay in his ability to organize the administration of a business and delegate details to subordinates. He eventually amassed a fortune of about $20 million USD. Boyce's life paralleled Theodore Roosevelt's in many ways: Both men were products of the Progressive Era, internationally prominent, had concern for children, supported Scouting, were adventurers and outdoorsmen, and were interested in civic reform. Although Boyce admired and sought to surpass Roosevelt, his only foray into politics was the 1896 Republican primary for congressman—a bitterly fought campaign which he lost to first-term incumbent George E. Foss. In all likelihood, Boyce met Roosevelt at the Union League Club of Chicago, of which the former had become a member in 1891. His ambivalent attitude towards government was a common one of the general public during the Progressive Era. However, Boyce's Republican credentials and monetary contributions earned him an invitation to the presidential inauguration and ball of William Howard Taft in March 1909.