E. W. Scripps was born to James and Julia Scripps in Rushville, Ill., and spent his early years there.

At 18 he went to Detroit with $80 in his pocket and a determination to make his way in the world. After working briefly as a drugstore clerk, he founded The Detroit News with his older brother, James E. Scripps. Associated with Ed and James in this venture were another brother, George, and a sister, Ellen Browning Scripps. E. W. was put to work in the circulation department, but soon gravitated to the editorial department. The newspaper remains in operation under this name today, but is not affiliated with The E. W. Scripps Company.

By the time he was ready in 1878 to launch his first paper, he must have formed some clear and fixed concepts as to the kind of paper it would be. That newspaper, The Penny Press in Cleveland - later to become The Cleveland Press - was a clearly written newspaper targeted toward blue-collar readers and designed to reach the greatest possible number of people. It was inexpensive and popular in appeal. It was a medium of popular education.

E. W. Scripps lived to be 71, and had six children. To the very end he left no doubt who was in charge. On March 12, 1926, his yacht, Ohio, was anchored in Monrovia Bay, Liberia. His health was poor; he had a hunch this might be his last voyage. "If I die," he had told his secretary, "bury me at sea." After dinner Scripps complained of feeling ill, and in 20 minutes was dead.

As he wished, the crew slid his body into the Atlantic Ocean. They wouldn't have dared not to.

At his death, he left 25 newspapers; United Press, an international news service he founded to compete with The Associated Press; Newspaper Enterprise Association, a newspaper syndication service and forerunner of United Media; and numerous public buildings and projects that had been funded by Scripps's charitable giving.

Some of his biographers have created an image of E. W. Scripps as a farm boy sitting on a rail fence, contemplating the whole range of his ultimate purpose. This is a doubtful idealization of a genuinely precocious intellect. Like most men with the capacity for mental and spiritual growth, it is more probable that his philosophy of journalism and his sense of social justice flowered as he grew in stature.

Neither would it be an exact picture of E. W. Scripps to imagine him a bowed, sorrowful figure, brooding over the miseries of mankind. As a young man he was serious in purpose, but was of a lively disposition. He liked horses and drove a fine span. He smoked cigars and drank whiskey until almost the day of his death. He liked a rowdy game of poker. In his later years, he was gruff in manner; he wore boots and dribbled cigar ashes on his vest. His language was not always elegant. He was, in fact, a tough customer.

He was a humanitarian, but not a sentimentalist. He was tough-minded, tough-fibered and realistic. His idealism was intellectual, not emotionalism.

E. W. Scripps was no soft-hearted paternalist. He strove to provide careers, not charity. He believed self-reliance created self-respect.

Men looking for soft and easy journalistic careers rarely sought service with E. W. Scripps. It was hard, tough work. The hours were long; and good men more often than not worked for less pay than they could have drawn for commensurate work at the opposition's paper.

But for men of a particular breed, there was a quid pro quo - men who considered journalism an exciting adventure, or who had instincts for social reform, or who liked to deflate pomposity and pretense. Scripps papers stood in awe of no person or institution. Scripps men worked in an atmosphere of journalistic and creative freedom.

Roy Wilson Howard, who held the company's top management post for more than 30 years, was born in Ohio in 1883. His father died when Roy was a boy, leaving him to support his mother. He did not have the time or the money for a college education. He had to hustle.

When Roy finished Manual Training High School in Indianapolis, he went to work for The Indianapolis News as an $8-a-week reporter. He was raised to that dignity after a week during which his returns as a prolific correspondent netted him $35 -- approximately what the city editor received. He later became sports editor of The Indianapolis Star but, after a couple of years, desiring to broaden, he went to St. Louis and got a job on the telegraph desk of The Post Dispatch.

Roy had a friend, Ray Long, who was managing editor of The Cincinnati Post -- then, as now, of the Scripps group. When Roy was in St. Louis he got a bid from Long and went to Cincinnati as assistant managing editor of The Post.

Despite his better job, he still had Broadway on his mind. In March of 1906, he finally convinced Scripps's four Ohio newspaper editors to send him to New York as a correspondent.

In the early summer of 1906, E. W. Scripps bought the Publishers Press, a news-gathering agency which, in 1907, merged with the Scripps-McRae Association to form United Press, a privately owned international news service. Roy was made general news manager of Publishers Press upon its purchase by Scripps. A year later when United Press evolved, he became the first general news manager. He became president of United Press in 1912 at age 29.

Roy understood that it was impossible for United Press to cover everything completely, so he urged reporters to specialize. He encouraged a lean, compact style of news writing, featuring interviews and human interest stories, which up to that time had been regarded as out of bounds for press associations.

In 1921 E. W. Scripps emerged from eight years of retirement to reorganize his newspaper commonwealth. He persuaded Roy to resign from the United Press and become chairman of the board and business director of the then Scripps-McRae newspapers.

On Nov. 3, 1922, the concern's name was changed from Scripps-McRae to Scripps-Howard. E. W. Scripps retired and, through a power-of-attorney, vested his stock control in his son, Robert P. Scripps. Robert extended Roy's authority to include jurisdiction over both editorial and business departments in 1925. Roy relinquished the title as board chairman to W. W. Hawkins some years later but continued as president, until Dec. 31, 1952, when he turned that title over to his son, Jack R. Howard. He was 69.

Despite his retirement, he continued to visit the office daily - often seven days a week, title or no title - where he sat at the head of the table, right up until his death Nov. 20, 1964, at age 81.

As he lay dying of a heart attack in his New York office, he sternly questioned the methods of attendants arranging an oxygen mask. Roy Wilson Howard never took anything for granted. He wanted to make sure they knew what they were doing.

Roy’s early years are a familiar story in that era of American life – a perfect setting for the Horatio Alger theme. But a lot of mediocre men have gone through that mill and it doesn't explain Roy Howard. His boyhood experiences helped shape some of his thoughts, habits and outlooks, but whatever he was originated from some deep, elemental spring of intuition and energy; it flowed from an inner reservoir of natural endowments.

He had a complex personality, full of contradictions. He was considerate by nature, but would call important conferences for the end of the day, when his associates were fatigued. He formed quick and positive opinions, but often put off making a decision. Roy was realistic yet had an infinite capacity for rationalization. He was persuasive in argument but had a soft touch for a salesman. He was skeptical and wary, but could be taken in by sheer charm. He formed instant likes and prejudices, but had little capacity for nursing a grudge.