was one business manager who was not always at loggerheads with the editorial department.
He agreed with Ochs that the presentation of news is the first duty of a newspaper and, in the course of his travels throughout the world, he gathered several notable interviews for the paper.
He scooped the press of the world when he was the first newspaperman to interview the late King Alexander of Yugoslavia. Other notable interviews, appearing under his byline, were with Premier Mussolini, former King Alfonso of Spain and Portes Gil, former President of Mexico.
CALLED BUNDLE OF ENERGY
As good a description as any of Mr. Wiley personally was included in the recollections of William Mill Butler, historian of the Genesee Society, published last year by the Rochester Historical Society.
He referred to Mr. Wiley as “a moderate-sized, rotund, bundle of energy; alert, enterprising and aggressive; at home with the nation’s prominent people; finding his true sphere of usefulness and making an enduring reputation.”
The society which will honor Mr. Wiley this evening has previously paid homage at similar affairs to the late George Eastman, the Rochester philanthropist; Lillian D. Wald, social service leader; James W. Gerard, statesman and diplomat; William T. Dewart, newspaper publisher; Myron Taylor and Thomas J. Watson, industrialists, and Rhus Rhees, president of the University of Rochester.
It is particularly appropriate that the society now honors Louis Wiley—a thing which it has been prevented from doing in the past only because of the opposition of the man himself—for the organization has always been close to the heart of Wiley.
At a dinner of the society, held at the Savoy, January 25, 1899, Wiley made his first public speech in New York. As the “association of sometime residents of the Genesee Valley and Western New York” was founded, he said:
“We are all interested in the Valley of the Genesee. We want always to be regarded as part of it, wherever we roam. Every man who has ever lived in or near the Flower City (Rochester) seems to find particular pride in proclaiming it, and this association is the manifestation of that feeling.”
So tonight, when his own people honor him, it will be especially sweet to Louis Wiley, a man who has been honored by the governments of many foreign powers and the faculties of many leading American academic institutions.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
