Clarence W. Barron (1855–1928) newspaperman

Born in Boston, Barron’s father was a teamster. He graduated from Prescott Grammar School and the Graduate English High School in 1873 and went to work for the Boston Daily News and then the Evening Transcript. From 1878 to 1887, he was a reporter covering many beats but then began gravitating toward financial reporting. He became financial editor of the Boston Transcript. Recognizing the need for sound financial news, he founded the Boston News Bureau in 1887 and in 1897, the Philadelphia News Bureau. In 1893, he wrote his first book, The Boston Stock Exchange.

Financial news at the time was spotty and dominated by journalists often paid by Wall Street interests, who planted stories with journalists in order to affect the prices of stocks. Barron, however, saw the role of financial journalist as defending “the public interest, the financial truth for investors and the funds that should support the widow and the orphan.” As a result, he became one of the first journalists to see his role as a conduit of nonbiased financial information as well as a commentator on financial markets.

In 1902, he purchased control of Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Wall Street Journal, for $130,000 following Charles Dow’s death. The paper’s circulation was about 7,000; by 1920 it reached 18,750. In 1912, he became president of Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal. Barron introduced new printing equipment, and the newsgathering side of the company expanded. By the end of the 1920s, more than 50,000 copies of the paper were in daily circulation. In 1921, he founded the weekly financial newspaper that bears his name—Barron’s. He served as the paper’s editor in addition to being president of Dow Jones and publisher of the Wall Street Journal. The newspaper was an immediate success, reaching a circulation of 30,000 in its sixth year.

Barron testified before the Massachusetts Public Service Commission in 1913, when it was investigating the New Haven Railroad, and in 1920 he helped expose the investment racket conducted by Charles PONZI. He was the subject of a $5 million libel suit for his 1920 muckraking exposes of Ponzi. The suit was dropped after Ponzi’s arrest and conviction.

Barron is widely considered the father of American financial journalism. Many of his anecdotes and stories about the financiers of his period can be found in They Told Barron (1930) and More They Told Barron (1931). He also wrote several other books, including War Finance, As Viewed From the Roof of the World in Switzerland, The Mexican Problem, The Audacious War, and Twenty-Eight Essays on the Federal Reserve Act. He died in a sanitarium while visiting as part of a weight-loss program.