Harrison Gray Otis (publisher)

Harrison Gray Otis

Harrison Gray Otis (born February 10, 1837 on a farm near Marietta , Ohio , † July 30, 1917 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American publisher . He was the second editor of the Los Angeles Times .

Life

Otis was part of the National Convention of Republicans who nominated Abraham Lincoln as their party's presidential candidate. He fought on the Union side in the Civil War in William McKinley's regiment . After the war, he worked as an editor before moving to California. Before joining the Los Angeles Times, he worked for various smaller newspapers. When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898 , he asked his former superior McKinley, who had now become President , for a position as Assistant Secretary of War . However, Otis was rejected by the incumbent Secretary of War Russell A. Alger , and so he volunteered again in the war. Since Otis was deployed in the Philippines , he was not involved in any combat operations in the Spanish-American War, but commanded some armies in the Philippine-American War . After the war, he returned to his position as editor of the Los Angeles Times. He was instrumental in growing Los Angeles. He was a member of the San Fernando Syndicate, a group of investors who found out through inside information that the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct was intended to make the San Fernando Valley habitable. Otis used the newspaper to mislead people into fears to get them to vote in the referendum to build the aqueduct. His daughter Marian Otis Chandler's husband, Harry Chandler, succeeded him as editor of the newspaper.

Otis was a strictly conservative Republican. He was a firm believer in the ideals of the free market and was hostile to the unions, which is why he used his newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, to do so. His hostile stance even led to a bomb attack by the trade unions on his editorial building in 1910, in which the building was destroyed and 21 people were killed.

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• Biography of Harrison Gray Otis