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The job went to Elbert H. Baker, a tanner's son, who started as bookkeeper for the Cleveland Herald, switched to advertising, was hired by the Cleveland Leader, and then by Holden. Manager-publisher-editor of the Plain Dealer from 1898 to 1920 (when he retired), Elbert Baker began the then-sensational policy of telling the truth about circulation, bought wire services, hammered at separation of news and editorial, won a remarkable loyalty from his staff. In Baker's first years the rival Cleveland Leader, way out ahead of the Plain Dealer, paid little attention to Baker; when it realized what was happening, it was too late. In 1917 the Leader was glad to sell its morning paper to the Plain Dealer; in 1933 its Sunday paper went the same way.
In defense of the Plain Dealer's sedateness sedate Editorialist Shaw recalls that Newton D. Baker once said (to the Cleveland Y.M.C.A.) that an institution may be "both venerable and useful." Significantly, however, the Plain Dealer produced its most quoted editorial and its most spirited journalism when in 1940 it broke with century-old tradition to support Republican Wendell Willkie.