Johns reed biography images

John Reed was born in Portland , Oregon , on 22nd October, His father, Charles Jerome Reed, was a prosperous businessman, who paid for him to be educated privately. As a teenager he suffered from health problems. According to his biographer, Barbara Gelb : "In his eleventh year, the focal point of his illness became a weak kidney.

There seemed no cure for the condition, and for the next six years he suffered recurrent attacks of pain that kept him bedridden for periods of a week or more at a time. In the early s Charles Jerome Reed became associated with Theodore Roosevelt in his attempt to tackle corruption in Oregon.

John reed jnj

Reed was appointed as a United States Marshal. Reed was now regarded as a "traitor to his class" and was "ostracized by much of Portland's business and social community". As the author of So Short a Time has pointed out: "Charles Jerome Reed was distressed that he could not support his sons in the style and comfort he wanted for them, but he would not withdraw from his newfound political commitment.

He introduced him to his son who was later to help him in his chosen career. At Harvard University he showed little interest in politics and only occasionally attended meetings of the Socialist Club , then headed by Walter Lippmann. According to Theodore Draper: "He preferred to be the football team's star cheerleader, urging the future Republican congressman, Hamilton Fish, Jr.

Steffens introduced the young poet and playboy to the world of radicals and nonconformists in New York. But Steffens was then no Socialist himself and did not exert the kind of influence that would lead to a political commitment. Reed was drawn into the radical movement by going beyond Steffens and associating with the more unconventional New York intellectuals who were closer to him in age and temperament.