New-York tribune. [volume], January 26, 1916, Page 8, Image 8

About New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
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Goldberg?a Story of Success
How ;i Young Man Climbed in Nine Years from No Job to a Millionaire's Income
II
know who draw salarien <?f more
Such .'is there arc air nor ortli
te
OW many youngsters of thirty-three do you
than $50,000 a year?
There aren't many of them anywhere.
narilv found in newspaper offices. Hut?
The ?alary of Reuben L. Goldberg The Evening Mail's artist-humorist,
has iust been raised to a $50,000 minimum, with percentages worth proba?
bly as much more. $100,000 a year! ?<\nd Goldberg won't be thirty-three un?
til the Fourth of July.
When Goldberg was a boy in San Francisco he wanted to be a newspaper artist.
His father, a substantial, conservative bus;ness man, advised him to keep our of ir.
"There is no money in the newspaper business/1
said the elder Goldberg. 1 le knows better now.
To he sure, it has taken young Mr. Goldberg nearly
twelve years to work up from an $8 a week job to a guar?
anteed salary of $50,000 a year, with commissions and
things on top of that which ought to he worth another
^0,000 annually. He didn't start right ont to cam a
railroad president's salary as soon as he got through
college. Outride of fiction and the movies things don't
happen that way. But ever) cent Mr. Goldberg is paid
he earns and nobody grudges him a dollar o? it. least of
all his employers. The Evening Mail Syndicate. In
signing a contract to pay him for the next three vears a
little more than double the salary he has been receiving
for the last three years they have merely recognized the
increased value of his daily picture. due to his increased
ilarity with all sorts and conditions of men and
women.
For Goldberg is popular. If anv one doubts ?t,
watch the readers of The Evening Mail in the subway
and the elevated; ask the next bank president or traffic
cop or girl behind the counter that you happen to meet.
Say "Goldberg" and see them grin.
It isn't always easy to analyze the causes of popu?
larity. In Goldberg's case it is perhaps less difficult than
ordinarily. He i inter human, for one thing.
For another, he is so genuinely humorous. I here is in
his work the touch of burlesque that in itself is always
funny, but his pictures are very far from being merely
burlesques. Grotesque and impossible as are the curious
caricatures of humanity which he draws, their actions
are always governed by the same motives that dominate
all human action, and the reader sees in them as in a
mirror of satire a reflection of the frailties, the vanities
; the foibles of the entire race.
It is because Goldberg lias this power of making us see ourselves ?is others see
us that he is worth a $50,000 salary. Personally, being a \ erv mod, st and unspoiled
young man. he sometimes has doubts as to whether he is earning his pay or not.
When he was a student in the University of California 1m- drew the same sort of
funny pictures for the fun of seeing them printed in the cpllege paner. The fun of
seeing his own pictures in print is still almost as much of an incentive to Goldberg
as his salary. He was graduated from the university in 1904 with the degree of
Bachelor of Science, his parents having decided to make an engineer out of him. 1 lis
first job was plotting sewers in the San Francisco city engineer's office at $roo a
month. But there wasn't anything funny about pictures of sewers, so he threw up
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I la. GOLD ;! KG.
his ?ob and went to work on a San Francisco paper at $8 a week. His work there
was to draw a daily cartoon for the sport page, but even though they raised his pay
to $ 12 a week the paper didn't publish his cartoons, so he quit and went to another
paper where they paid him less money but let him do more work ?and published his
pictures. A few months later he again threw up his job. this time with the purpose
of trying to find something to do in New York. Noue of the first rfiree or four New
York editors he applied to showed any interest, but finally The Evening Mail offered
him a chance to do a daily cartoon for the sporting page.
This was in 1907, and Goldberg has been a member of The Evening Mail staf?
ever since. I le started in at $50 a week. Three months
later this was increased to $65 a week. At the end o I six
months his salan- was again raised, tin's time to $75 a
week, a^t the end of his first year The Kvening Maii
signed a contract with him guaranteeing him $100 a
week for two years. It was during this contract that Mr.
Goldberg's pictures began to be sold to other newspapers
around the country. To-day more than 2,200.000 news?
paper readers all over the I 'nited States laugh with ( iold
; daily.
At the close of his third year with The Evening Mail
a new three years' contract at $300 a week was signed
with Goldberg. When this expired another contract,
also running three years, was entered into, this one at
$450 a week, which is the artist's present salary. His
new contract, which takes effect on July 1st, provides for
a salan* of $50,000 a year and royalties on the ?Goldberg
Animated Cartoons, which may amount to as much
more.
These Goldberg Animated Cartoons, by the way,
are the funniest pictures that have ever been shown on
the screen. The public hasn't had an opportunity to see
them yet, but within a few weeks they will be shown in
movie theatres in every city and village in America.
There is a popular theory that great artists dash oft
their work on the inspiration of the moment. Gold?
berg's theory is thai perspiration is more important than
inspiration. There isn't a truck driver or bank clerk in
New York who works harder or longer hours than this
same R. L. Goldberg. If is tins ability to take infinite
pains with his work ami sfu'k to each picture until he
has got it in exactly the form that he wants ir that gives
to Goldberg's work its enduring qualities. For, as every
reader of The Evening Mail knows, the quality of Gold?
berg's work never lets down. Dealing with an infinite
variety of subjects, h" maintains in every new picture the
wme keen edge of wit, the same laugh-provoking mirth that have made him famous.
And he is still modest about his own achievements. Not long ago. at a dinner i)\ the
Soeicty of Illustrators, he met Charles Dana Gibson. The famous painter of beauti?
ful women expressed his admiration for the newspaper artist's work.
"I will admit that perhaps my pictures are funnier than yours," said Goldberg,
"but 1 wish I could draw like you can."
"Don't let anybody tell you you can't draw." said Gibson. 'T cerfainlv can't
draw any better than you can, if as well. The best I can do is to make pictures of
people as they really are. You can draw pictures of people as they never were and
still have them human."
WHAT NEWSPAPER KDITORS THINK OF GOLDBERG'S WORK
W. ?T. ?KTPElf, Mnnaaciiiif 1 ?Hut Grand RapMa Wane
?
i mea gro I ei an I -area nverted a
?lana A : tlio beet thing- abo .' him la that he
geta ? ' ne.
JOHN S HUH V. Mhh.ikIii?t 1 <Mtor Atlanta ?lotinial ?
Gol?' ? - ? ? ' ' hlmeeli rlth e real
. ? ?'?> var
Miiiiii*rin-a, I ilil.T stiiu-iiii lli-i.ilit Goldberg gets gobs of
grins
.1 1' MM I 1 l?. !?abUta>a>ini I (lltor S'ttlimiali MiirrilliK \rm
of thei
.III ?aMPBl I I.. *?' ii?.ia?.(?>K lt!ll?>r lliiiii.ii -li.ain Ve-wi?
e et the k<
. .-i ut i;.-, i.- . a peopla of the day.
.1 .'. McAl i n ? E, Managing Fxlll .,? -. i ,,,,,, oiobe?I>esii?
<.i-i.ii? Goldberg- hae II
Units tatea ?' ? rtJ ? -?.?-r amile
ige to look pleaaant when they leek at th< ?oidben i
. ream ?t wit an.I h .?
OEOR?il e VEWMAN, M inactnic Padlto* UM?avtlle
Evening l'u-i Gold ??? enefactora o?
I ?? afforda it
al picture?
tee an I ...body ti les
Man? i iii.ir i afayette < ?mrlrr Goldberg is men
. ?
JOIIS I'M \<?ii t i STI8, Maatataglng KOntnt ?nmaiart-nlile
Inqnlrei rg'e carl - re thi beat ai 1 n eel ?papular
?feature ] ? ed :?. tha United State*
J K. IMI'l, Manajrtng Iilltor lltlalnirg leader UoM
??'??riT'B originality in wit. i?i??ai and ?!rawing, combined with th*
lateneaa of hi? ?jufeitectB, the whole literally peaked in
' ? ' .?, make hla <*wt.Jo.?ji the most enjoyanlo seen in thi
f nlt?M f-'tatea ?'.-?-'lay
II IV BAhl/n. Mj?ia?g?T rirt-tilatlon ReadliiK THrtrratn
runes Goldberg, -<y ht* extreme caricatur?e or the fiaiiri?.
of h ?man net ira ce il I ir... ka a lur.atio grasp Mtua.tiui.3 where
a akllletl phyeiclai ?routa ?Sal?.
J. M. (OU II'. AX, IUmU Islai.il \rgus < .o.itl,.?? g la .?ric?
in* he I? fui ??? he la i g-r-at art-let, and eu) this wny are
enjoy hla work Immensely.
MAUMIAl.r. rVAIaiaAJU). Manning KOHot \>w Orleans
iN-rn Goldberg in on? of u,# rnost popularly Intelligent and
i-enerjwy affective aatiriarta of our i oMenipom : y f, , la foiblaa
und inslncerltlee '
Onoyi i'\i h usos, -tr-ttng Mauagtam editor Toledo
?""'?' ?.and self pereonally, are v.>ry .
for Goldberg. We think It la a great *
,?,-?!' F ?F^?.!.f8TO!f' VAU"r ******** msm?aa?
,rir" Iberg one s-eH reflected In .? gn taeqi i
?yery ?ti .- i ? ? - -, ae of tha n eel tad the a
' ? '-'.' led. Rtcv
tata-aax f tha I gheet
Thackerey of contemporary / ?rlcai ??? ?"
? ? ? .
Mami^uu; r.lit.ir S;?ilira,,,,?.,, BmUet**- Rnb# < ? -,
?' ! '?- ' it? and evar
h";\." ? Ha la a I aver pa le. i
M H?"i t^ord .? : , itaaf . . r, ...-Vt, ,
TAYLOR KINMItM, Mana*,,,.; |.(tlt?r _____,,
___f_^r, ? - i ??? t?*-r?-?_*"Z. .5
1 " Iberg Is 4fr?-.-.' ?very ?lay.
mi.-r?
but
aii..-.-^
"GOLDBERG ?SEES THE FUN IN HUMAN NATURE
Every Day on the Back Page of
VENING MA
k!-^??ala-'- -?.