One of Adolph Ochs’ two brothers, George Ochs, also carried the Knoxville Chronicle, beginning at the age of 7, working from 4:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. He continued to supplement the family income in this way until his junior year at East Tennessee University (UT), when he moved to Chattanooga with his family. He had distinguished himself academically at the university, and in 1880 was awarded his degree from the newly named University of Tennessee, even though he had attended for only three years.
George Ochs became a reporter at his brother Adolph’s Chattanooga Daily Times. He became general manager in 1896, when Adolph purchased the New York Times and moved to New York. In 1891 he was appointed police commissioner of Chattanooga and was chosen in the following year as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, at which he seconded the nomination of Grover Cleveland for president. He was elected mayor of Chattanooga in 1893 and reelected in 1895, serving in addition to his work as general manager of the Times.
He was elected to Chattanooga’s board of education in 1897 and served as its president until 1900, when his brother Adolph sent him to Paris to publish a daily edition of the New York Times at the Paris Exposition. The six-day-a-week Paris edition was a great success, and after George returned to Chattanooga in December 1900, he was informed that the president of France had nominated him for the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor for his efforts at the Paris Exposition. In 1901 he was asked by Adolph to become general manager of the Philadelphia Times and subsequently was publisher and general manager of the combined Times and Philadelphia Public Ledger. Ochs remained publisher until the paper was sold in 1913. At the outbreak of World War I, Ochs tried to enlist but was refused because of his age. He persisted and signed up as a private in the 9th Coast Artillery, New York National Guard, and served from 1917 until the armistice in 1918. He then edited the Current History magazine, founded by the New York Times.
In 1917 he changed the surname of his two sons to “Oakes” and modified his own out of anger at the German atrocities during World War I. From 1907 to 1914, he served as president of the Jewish Chautauqua Association.