The writing of news, a handbook with chapters on newspaper correspondence and copy reading
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
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Charles Griffith Ross was an American newspaper correspondent, editor, and presidential press official. He was a White House Press Secretary between 1945 and 1950 for President Harry S. Truman.
Background
Charles Griffith Ross was born in Independence, Missouri, the only son and third of the nine children of James Bruce Ross and Ella (Thomas) Ross. His Scottish forebears had come to America in colonial times. Charles's grandfather, Griffith Ross, who owned a prosperous cotton plantation in Henderson, Tenn. , served as a captain in the army of the Confederacy as well as in its congress. His son, "J. B. " Ross, who prospected in Colorado, married into a Campbellite Virginia family on a stop in Independence, settled there, and became Jackson County marshal. Prospecting remained in his blood and at intervals he was lured west by visions of silver and gold.
Education
"Charlie" Ross attended public school in Independence, enjoyed the attractions of the county seat square, read every book he could put his hands on, and thrilled to his grandmother Thomas' stories of border warfare between the Kansas Jayhawkers and the Missouri Bushwhackers. Although only fifteen, he stood at the top of the 1901 high school class which included a quiet, musically inclined boy named Harry Truman. Ross then entered the University of Missouri, where as a sophomore he helped organize a society to promote writing, already a major interest. George Washington University granted him an honorary doctorate of laws in 1935. He received LL. D. degree in 1936 from the University of Missouri.
Career
While studying, Ross worked as a part-time campus reporter for the Columbia (Mo. ) Herald, whose editor was Walter Williams. After graduation, Ross spent a year on the Herald (1905 - 1906), and then went to Victor, Colo. , to join his father and report briefly for the Victor Daily Record. At the first opportunity, he moved to St. Louis to take a position on the Post-Dispatch (1906 - 1907) under the expert tutelage of Oliver K. Bovard. Then, in 1907 he moved on to the St. Louis Republic for the experience of editing news copy.
He was chief of the Republic's copy desk when Walter Williams, having persuaded the University of Missouri curators to establish an academic school of journalism, chose Ross as his first faculty member.
For a sabbatical year (1916 - 1917), Ross went to Australia as subeditor on the Melbourne Herald. In 1918, Bovard engaged him to be the Post-Dispatch's first Washington correspondent. Ross rose steadily in the esteem of the capital newspaper corps. His devotion to thorough investigation, accurate and lucid writing, and thoughtful analysis fitted him admirably for interpretive reporting. His own political and economic philosophy was drawn from the thinking of Supreme Court justices Oliver W. Holmes and Louis D. Brandeis and senators Robert M. La Follette and George W. Norris, whom he frequently quoted. On a carefully directed assignment from Bovard, Ross wrote, in the depths of the depression, a detailed examination of the collapse, its causes, and recommended solutions (Post-Dispatch, Nov. 29, 1931). Entitled "The Country's Plight--What Can Be Done About It?" this article found American capitalism at fault, due to its uneven distribution of wealth and income, and called on both business enterprise and the federal government to join in correcting the imbalance.
In response to demand, it was reprinted as a pamphlet and distributed nationally. Editor & Publisher described the project as "the most thorough, scholarly and candid roundup of the national depression that it has ever been our fortune to read in any newspaper, magazine or book" (Dec. 19, 1931).
Starting in the second Wilson administration, Ross chronicled official Washington in the Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and early Roosevelt years. His overseas assignments included the London Naval Conference of 1930 and the world economic conference in London (1933). He was one of the few foresighted correspondents who accompanied Harding to Alaska in 1923. He rode Harding's funeral train from San Francisco to Washington and reported that solemn experience with a vivid dignity. His colleagues elected him head of the Overseas Writers Club (1927) and president of the Gridiron Club (1933).
His Washington years, he resided in Chevy Chase, Md. , so he could have a voter's part in the electoral process, were broken when in 1934 Joseph Pulitzer, editor and publisher of the Post-Dispatch, gave him the choice between editing the editorial page and searching for a successor to Clark McAdams, whose enthusiastic support of Roosevelt's policies exceeded Pulitzer's restraints.
Not wanting to sponsor an outsider, Ross reluctantly went to St. Louis. It was a difficult time to take over, for when his old schoolmate Harry S. Truman ran for the Senate in 1934, the Post-Dispatch was strenuously opposed to candidates developed by Kansas City boss Thomas J. Pendergast, of whom Truman was one. As editorial page editor for five years, Ross called for Roosevelt's defeat in 1936 and campaigned against the Roosevelt proposal to enlarge the Supreme Court. He also reversed the paper's long advocacy of the proposed childlabor amendment. His editorials were well written but generally and understandably lacked characteristic Post-Dispatch spirit and vigor.
Supplanted in 1939 by Ralph Coghlan, he returned to Washington as contributing editor. In this capacity he wrote a signed column of opinion not subject to editing in St. Louis. He also prepared and edited special projects, such as a symposium on the nation's war aims in 1943 and "Men and Jobs After the War, " a major series on postwar employment, in 1944. He compiled a history of the Post-Dispatch for its fiftieth anniversary (1928) and edited the sixtieth anniversary issue. The latter, with emphasis on the state of the press, led to an extensive inventory of the views of 120 representative Americans on press freedom that Ross conducted.
When Truman assumed the presidency in 1945, he promptly drafted Ross for his press secretary. The selection was widely applauded, and again with reluctance Ross accepted, being sworn in on May 15. Clearly Ross's chief purpose was to help his friend; his White House compensation would be $10, 000 as against a salary of more than $35, 000 at the newspaper. His duties included writing and editing presidential speeches, handling much of the chief executive's mail, and counseling Truman on myriad matters. Within a few weeks he was at Potsdam directing the preparation of the final communique issued by Truman, Attlee, and Stalin at the Allied conference necessitated by the Nazi surrender. Although his sympathies often were with his former press associates, Ross helped train Truman to say, "No comment. "
After Truman's surprise victory in the 1948 election, Ross wrote for Collier's (Dec. 25) an article entitled "How Truman Did It. " As a major White House staff member, Ross worked long, straining hours and engaged in fatiguing travel with the president, as when they flew to Wake Island in 1950 to confer with Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
Usually mild mannered, Ross could take up the cudgels and did successfully, for example, in 1928 against the admission of Mussolini to membership in the National Press Club. His face, long and sober-looking, often lighted up with wit and humor. Arthritis caused him almost continuous pain in his last years, and in 1949 he sought relief through a wrist operation. After briefing newsmen on the Truman-Attlee conference of December 5, 1950, Ross collapsed at his desk and died of a coronary occlusion. He was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery, Washington, D. C. The nation's newspapers paid him generous tribute as a journalistic craftsman of high order.
On August 20, 1913, Ross married Florence Griffin, the daughter of John J. Griffin, circulation manager of the St. Louis Republic. They had two sons, John Bruce and Walter Williams.