Moses Annenberg

Prussian-American entrepreneur who became a publishing czar, leaving his empire to his son Walter. Moses made his mark with innovative circulation gimmicks and bare-knuckled competitive tactics that fueled the success of such papers as "The Philadelphia Inquirer" and the "Daily Racing Form" (the Annenberg’s cash cow). Moe was born to a Jewish family in the Russian hamlet of Kalvishken, the eighth child, scrawny and eager. The harsh conditions impressed upon him by the Baltic Sea gales cold and poverty, marked the boy with an ambition that shaded some of his later business practices and associates. Persecuted by the fiercely anti-Semitic regime of Czar Alexander III, in 1885, Tobias Annenberg emigrated to America with his family, including eight-year-old Moses. They achieved enormous wealth in two generations through aggressive practices that also led to a two-year jail stint for tax evasion in Moe’s later years. He adored and spoiled his only son, Walter, born in 1908, perhaps one of the few who escaped Moe’s terrible temper. With rags-to-riches growth worthy of a Horatio Alger novel, Moses purchased and aggressively marketed a local horse-racing publication, soon amassing the wherewithal to buy the prestigious "Philadelphia Inquirer." Their circulation-boosting methods would be frowned on today, such as beating up rival distributors with baseball bats. Interior Secretary Harold Ickes, Sr. noted in his diary that Annenberg was "as cruel, as ruthless, and as lawless as Hitler himself." But when the a crisis threatened the newspaper with business and legal distress, it was son Walter, previously irresponsible, who stepped up to recover the family fortune by launching "TV Guide" (the nation's only billion-dollar-a-year publication) and "Seventeen." Indeed, the remarkable financial success of Walter, his one son among seven daughters, helped elevate him to circles of political influence (bringing Walter an ambassadorship to Great Britain in 1969 and the means to collect fine art and to practice philanthropy on a grand scale.) In April 1940, Moe plead guilty to one count of evading $1.1 million in taxes, chiefly by padding expense accounts, in return for the government dropping all other charges against him, his son, and his associates. Annenberg was sentenced to three years in prison and his companies were forced to pay $9.5 million in penalties. Annenberg never served out his sentence; he was released in June 1942 after suffering a massive brain tumor in prison and died a month later. Link to Wikipedia biography