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William Burnett Benton was an American politician and businessman. He also was publisher of the Encyclopædia Britannica.
Background
William Benton was born on April 1, 1900, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, the son of Charles William Benton and Elma Caroline Hixson. His family had a tradition of intellectual achievement; ancestors on both sides had been New England clergymen and teachers.
Education
After the death of his father in 1913 Benton received a scholarship to the Shattuck Military Academy in Faribault, Minnesota, from which he graduated in 1917. He studied at Carleton College the following year, served in the Student Army Training Corps during World War I, then entered Yale University, where he became chairman of the board of the Yale Record, a humor periodical. He graduated in 1921 and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, which he declined in order to pursue a business career.
Career
Drawn to the world of advertising after having worked little more than a year at the National Cash Register Company, Benton found employment first at the New York City office of Lord and Thomas and soon thereafter at the George Batten Company. Assigned to the trade paper branch, he transformed what was then considered a dull and largely unprofitable market into a lucrative field. Because he insistently and astutely urged that the Batten agency merge with Barton, Durstine, and Osborne, uniting their respective strengths in copywriting and client solicitation, he was fired, precipitating a crisis that brought about the merger two months later. For more than a year he again worked for Lord and Thomas, this time in Chicago, earning a salary of $25, 000 when he resigned to open his own firm in 1929.
With Chester Bowles, a fellow Yale graduate and future governor of Connecticut, Benton opened the Benton and Bowles agency in July 1929. The young partners brought fresh ideas to the advertising world, including introduction of consumer research and use of the new medium of radio advertising. Concentrating on food and drug accounts such as General Foods and Bristol Myers, the agency prospered; by 1935 Benton's income had risen to $250, 000. At the end of the year he retired, he said, "to search after that ever elusive perspective on oneself. "
University of Chicago president Robert Maynard Hutchins, a Yale classmate, persuaded the young retiree to join the university to work on public relations and fund-raising. The university's innovative atmosphere under Hutchins's leadership captured Benton's imagination. From 1937 to 1945 he was part-time vice-president, becoming a trustee in 1946 after he left the institution. Benton placated two influential critics of the university, Charles Walgreen, the drug store magnate, and Robert McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune. Each had leveled charges of radicalism against the faculty. Widening the university's reach through radio, motion pictures, and publication engaged Benton's attention. He transformed the University of Chicago Round Table, a Sunday program of academic discussion, into a highly popular radio broadcast.
Benton persuaded reluctant university trustees to acquire the Encyclopaedia Britannica only after he agreed to invest $100, 000 of his own money as working capital, the university to own all the preferred stock, Benton the common. In 1943 he became owner, publisher, and chairman of the board of the Britannica. He established its first board of editors and set about making the work a means of education as well as a reference set. For years he had believed educational films to be "perhaps the most striking opportunity for public service in the field of education today. " As owner of the Britannica he bought ERPI, a faltering educational film project of Eastman Kodak Company, and converted it into Encyclopaedia Britannica Films, Inc. , the largest producer and distributor of educational films.
In 1939 Benton acquired the Muzak Corporation, presciently envisioning expansion of its musical programs beyond restaurants and hotels to offices, department stores, hospitals and other markets. Nearly twenty years later Benton sold Muzak at a net profit to himself of over $4 million.
Public affairs and politics from his early years held Benton's interest. In 1942 he helped found the Committee for Economic Development (CED), a nonprofit organization; and as vice-president insisted that it, in addition to preparing businessmen for postwar opportunities, develop a research base. His work with the CED enlarged an already broad acquaintance with business leaders and his understanding of foreign relations.
In September 1945 President Truman appointed him assistant secretary of state for public affairs, with duties involving consolidating wartime information agencies under the State Department and starting a peacetime information program. In his new public role Benton struggled with foreign service bureaucrats to win passage of the Foreign Service Act of 1946. He worked with Congress and newspaper networks to maintain a postwar information service and strengthen the Voice of America, which broadcast news of the United States to foreign countries. He helped push through the Fulbright Act and was instrumental in establishing the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In September 1947, following enactment of the Smith-Mundt bill giving legislative sanction to his program, he resigned.
During the next two years Benton rescued the Britannica from financial troubles and headed State Department delegations to the UNESCO conference in Mexico City and a conference on freedom of information and the press in Geneva. Following the resignation of Raymond Baldwin from the United States Senate, Chester Bowles, now governor of Connecticut, in 1949 appointed Benton to fill the vacancy, which involved standing for election in 1950 to complete the unexpired term. That year he defeated the Republican candidate, Prescott Bush, by a margin of 1, 102 votes. In the Senate Benton was assigned to the Committee on Government Operations and the Rules Committee. He ordinarily supported President Truman, except for a vote he later deeply regretted in favor of the McCarran Internal Security Act. The next year he vigorously opposed the McCarran-Walter immigration act. On August 6, 1951, in a climate of national hysteria following Senator Joseph McCarthy's charges of Communist influence in the State Department, he called for McCarthy's resignation from the Senate.
Early in life Benton had identified himself as an independent in politics; now a Democrat he sought to persuade General Dwight D. Eisenhower to run for president on the Democratic ticket. Eisenhower's eventual race on the Republican ticket, perhaps more than McCarthy's intervention in the Connecticut campaign, in 1952 cost Benton election to a full term. Benton was a member of the platform committee in 1952 and every subsequent election year except 1960 until his death.
Out of public office at the age of fifty-two, Benton devoted himself to publication of the "Great Books of the Western World, " expansion of Britannica interests including purchase of Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia, the G. C. Merriam Company, publisher of Webster's dictionaries, and Frederick B. Praeger, Inc. He participated in numerous public interest groups, serving on boards and winning many honors. He wrote three insightful books following visits abroad: This Is the Challenge (1958), published shortly after the public's discovery of Soviet expertise in science and technology; The Voice of Latin America (1961), urging inter-American cooperation; and The Teachers and the Taught (1966), describing Soviet continuing progress in education. From 1963 to 1968 he served as ambassador to UNESCO in Paris. Benton died in New York City.
Recipient Annual award of honor HIAS, 1952. Distinguished Service medal School Journalism, Syracuse University, 1960. Distinguished Honor award Department State, 1967.tempSpace1st William Benton medal University of Chicago, 1968.
Human Relations award American Jewish Committee, 1968. Kajima Peace award, 1969.tempSpaceNational Human Relations award National Conference Christians and Jews, 1969. Key to Freedom award Hadassah, 1966.
Honorary fellow Weizmann Institute Science, Israel, 1970.tempSpaceDistinguished Public Service award Connecticut Bar Association, 1971. Chubb fellow Yale, 1972. Decorated grand cross National Order Southern Cross (Brazil).tempSpaceOrder of Star of Soliadrity 1st Class (Italy).
Recipient Annual award of honor HIAS, 1952. Distinguished Service medal School Journalism, Syracuse University, 1960. Distinguished Honor award Department State, 1967.tempSpace1st William Benton medal University of Chicago, 1968.
Human Relations award American Jewish Committee, 1968. Kajima Peace award, 1969.tempSpaceNational Human Relations award National Conference Christians and Jews, 1969. Key to Freedom award Hadassah, 1966.
Honorary fellow Weizmann Institute Science, Israel, 1970.tempSpaceDistinguished Public Service award Connecticut Bar Association, 1971. Chubb fellow Yale, 1972. Decorated grand cross National Order Southern Cross (Brazil).tempSpaceOrder of Star of Soliadrity 1st Class (Italy).