Elmer Dover

Article taken from The Middlesboro Daily News, Middlesboro, KY, February 7, 1923

 

Elemer Dover, recently assistant secretary of the treasury, reported as the likely next chairman of the Republican National Committee, qualified as a future financier when, in his teens, he was a newspaper reporter at Portsmouth, O.

"I had a string of about a dozen papers," says in recounting his first financial exploit. "Whenever anything happened around Portsmouth I'd query them and send them as much as they wanted."

"One morning I got a tip there had been a murder at Peenville. I quiered my papers and 10 of them ordered stories. Then I and the correspondent of a Cincinnati paper hired livery rig and drove to Peenville for the story.

"It proved to be a suicide instead of a murder, but there was a story in it and I filled to all the papers."

"When I was making up my 'string' at the end of the month, I was confronted with this dilemma. The other newspaperman and I had paid $5 for the livery rig, splitting it $2.50 each way."

"If I prorated that among the 10 papers to which I sent the story it would make an item for livery hire at 25 cents each, which on its fact would appear absurd. If I entered it at $2.50 it would be an open admission that I had split expenses with some other correspondent. For $5 would be recognized as the probable and reasonable livery charge for a drive to Pennville."

"So I added a charge of $5 for livery hire to my bill to each of the 10 papers. And every one of them paid it."