Early in his career at the "San Francisco Examiner," Hearst envisioned running a large newspaper chain, and "always knew that his dream of a nation-spanning, multi-paper news operation was impossible without a triumph in New York". In 1895, with the financial support of his widowed mother (his father had died in 1891), Hearst bought the failing "New York Morning Journal", hiring writers such as Stephen Crane and Julian Hawthorne, and entering into a head-to-head circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer, owner and publisher of the "New York World." Hearst "stole" Richard F. Outcault, the creator of color comics, and all of Pulitzer's Sunday staff as well. Another prominent hire was James J. Montague, who came from the "Portland Oregonian" and started his well-known "More Truth Than Poetry" column at the Hearst-owned "New York Evening Journal."