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One disbelieving look at his new clerk and the judge scaled Sam's salary to size —nothing at all the first month, then $2 a week. But what Sam lacked in stature he more than made up in drive. He spent his nights studying law in Newark, was admitted to the bar a week after his 21st birthday. After that, he actually tried—and lost—a case. (Chagrined by defeat, Newhouse doled out of his own pocket the $80 damages that his client had sought in court. Today he is convinced that the jury was fixed.) "
Take Care of It." But luck had already taken Newhouse away from the law. As payment on a bad debt. Judge Lazarus had picked up a 51% interest in the Bayonne Times, an anemic daily with 3,000 fickle subscribers (they kept defecting to Bayonne's other papers). Lazarus entrusted the paper to a succession of managers, all of whom failed dismally to make the paper pay. In 1912, Lazarus bodily evicted the last of these, Octavus Roy Cohen, who had spent most of his working hours courting the girls at the Bayonne Opera House next door. "Sammy," said Lazarus to his little law clerk, "go down and take care of the paper until we get rid of it." Newhouse was barely 17.
Before the judge could dispose of the Times, however, Newhouse had it running in the black. No particular magic was fnvolved. With the common-sense shrewdness that has served him ever since, Newhouse followed the sensible premise that he and the Bayonne Times could learn a trick or two from the big-city press. He studied the display ads in Manhattan papers, then spent long hours in Bayonne stores, helping their owners to map merchandising campaigns. The city burst out in a rash of special sales, many of them the handiwork of Sam Newhouse —and all of them, naturally, advertised in the Bayonne Times.
Togetherness. Gratified and impressed, Judge Lazarus made no objection when Newhouse asked for a cut of the paper's take instead of salary—a move that eventually meant $20,000 a year to Sam while he was still in his early 20s. Nor did the judge protest when Newhouse loaded the payroll with kin. As Sam expanded, this nepotism amounted to infestation. At one time, Newhouse employed five dozen relatives, although death, weddings and other forms of attrition have materially trimmed the list.
But the Newhouse empire still abounds with Newhouses and in-laws. Brother Theodore, 58, is officially associate publisher of the Newhouse papers, regularly visits the Newhouse properties in Birmingham and Portland, Ore. Brother Norman, 56, is the sole official scanner of the Newhouse papers. He also serves as editor of the Long Island Press. Newhouse's two sons are being groomed for succession. Samuel I. Jr., 34, is currently watchdogging his father's magazine interests. Donald, 32, accompanies Pop on some of his trips, also oversees the Jersey Journal in Jersey City.
Bayonne clearly was not big enough either for Sam's talents or for his numerous tribe. In 1922, by passing the hat among the family and by coaxing $49,000 from the judge, he raised $98,000 for a controlling interest in the Staten