A Scotch-Irishman who distrusted organized religion, George Ross liked to engage the local Mormons in theological debate. His wife, the former Ida Martin, a Scotch Presbyterian born in Salina, Kansas, and a former schoolteacher in the Oklahoma Indian Territory, named her son Harold because it meant "leader of men," and she also endowed him with a high moral sense and a squeamishness that later caused him to refrain from swearing in the company of women and to keep sexual references or innuendos out of the
New Yorker. As a young man he was awkwardly built and had large hands and feet, a pale complexion, squinty gray eyes, and cowlicks in his hair. He fidgeted constantly but was an able student.
At West Side High School, Ross was a staffer on the school paper, the Red and Black. His hero was war correspondent Frederick Palmer, and, longing to become a newspaperman, Ross haunted the local papers, the Telegraph and the Tribune, running errands and tagging after reporters. By now schoolwork interested him little, and frequent arguments with his father caused him to run away from home on several occasions. On one such adventure he stayed in Denver with an uncle who found him a job as an errand boy for the Post.
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