History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/4/Robert B. Armstrong
ROBERT B. ARMSTRONG was born at Polk City, Iowa, August 19, 1873. He graduated at the local high school at the age of fourteen and two years later entered the Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, relying largely upon his own resources in obtaining an education. Meeting with an almost fatal accident he was obliged to enter a printing office to procure money to continue his college course. In 1894 Mr. Armstrong secured a position on the Des Moines Leader and later became city editor of the Des Moines News. In 1895 he went to Chicago and soon obtained a position on the Daily Record, working in the local department. In 1896 he came to Iowa as the representative of the Chicago Record during the political campaign in which Leslie M. Shaw was first a candidate for Governor. So rapidly had Mr. Armstrong developed newspaper talent that in 1898 he was sent to New York to take charge of the eastern news and editorial matter for the Record. Attracting attention of leading journalists in New York by his marked newspaper ability, in 1901 he was employed by the New York Herald as chief of its Chicago bureau. After Governor Shaw became Secretary of the Treasury, in 1902, he selected Robert B. Armstrong as his private secretary, where he developed such unusual talent and practical business ability that Secretary Shaw secured his promotion to the responsible position of Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in January, 1903.