John O'Hara Cosgrave

Born: Either 4 or 11 July 1864 in Melbourne, Australia.

Died: 19 September 1947 in New York.

John O'Hara Cosgrave allegedly introduced Crowley to the U.S. Department of Justice to aid in Crowley's attempt to infiltrate the pro-German in the U.S. and publish propaganda so ridiculous as to destroy Germany's credibility.

Cosgrave is listed on U.S. census, marriage and immigration documents as having been born in Melbourne, Australia, on either 4 or 11 July 1864, the eldest son of John Cosgrave and Mary Kirby Cosgrave. He was an American editor and writer of philosophical works, after whom a US Medal for Distinguished Service to Journalism is named. In the 1890s, Cosgrave was editor of The Wave, a San Francisco weekly with a “smart, patrician” tone and an upper-middle-class readership. It was aimed at “those in the swim—socially, intellectually, politically and literarily”. Here he fostered the early career of novelist Frank Norris. Cosgrave then moved east and secured the plum job as editor of Everybody’s Magazine (1900-1911). His emphasis was on investigative journalism and social justice, but Teddy Roosevelt naturally labeled this “muckraking”. Cosgrave published pieces by, among many others, Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ambrose Bierce, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, Upton Sinclair and Oakland-raised Jack London. In 1904, the magazine’s circulation reached 750,000. Cosgrave boasted in an interview with The New York Times that he had by then a stable of eight writers (including London, who started out at $20 a story) to whom he paid $1000 for 5000 words, or 20 cents a word. In 1912, Cosgrave was for three months managing editor of Collier’s, and then Sunday editor of The New York World until 1927. He died in New York on 19 September 1947, aged 83.