This experience must have been etched upon Harvey's memory; no one
can be more meticulous when his interest is aroused. To money he is
indifferent, but a misplaced word makes him shudder. Writing with
him is an exhausting process, which probably accounts for the fact
that his literary output has been small. But the same power of
analysis and attention to detail have been most effective in his
political activities. In these his divination has been prophetic
and in his manipulation of contending elements he shows a dexterity
that has baffled even the professional politicians.
Harvey began his journalistic career upon the Peacham Patriot.
Thence, with a borrowed ten dollar bill, he went to Springfield,
serving his apprenticeship on the Republican, the best school of
journalism in the country at that time. Later, on the Chicago
Evening News, on the staff of which were Victor Lawson, Eugene
Field, and Melville Stone, he completed his training.
When he joined the staff of the New York World at the age of
twenty-one he was a competent, if not a brilliant newspaper man.
His first important billet was the New Jersey editorship. This
assignment across the river might very easily have been the first
step toward a journalistic sepulcher, but not for Harvey. He made
use of the post to garner an experience and knowledge of New Jersey
politics that were to have an important bearing upon the career of
Woodrow Wilson later.
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