William Allen White: Defender of Democracy, 1919-1944

By Jack Wayne Traylor

Once upon a time, William Allen White of Emporia, Kansas, was a household name in America. An acquaintance of every twentieth century president from Theodore Roosevelt to Franklin Roosevelt, he held a close friendship with the former and generally was an admirer of the latter. White allied himself with the Progressive movement early in the twentieth century, originally from the influence of T. R., but also from others such as Woodrow Wilson. The author of numerous books, both fiction and non-fiction, and an important political advisor within the Republican party, although he traveled and spoke often both in the United States and sometimes abroad, White nevertheless was most proud of the fact that he was a small-town newspaper editor in Emporia until his death there in 1944. He was an important supporter of middle class and middle western values, but a close examination of his writings from the end of World War I until 1944 shows that he was most concerned about support for democracy, which he defined as Christianity institutionalized. This came at a time when democratic principles were coming under scrutiny or outright attack, both at home and abroad. Politically he always sought to promote the moderate course, attempting to bring both major parties together in a common ground. Even though he is not widely known today, perhaps his message has a significant value to twenty-first-century America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644163351

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William Allen White

Defender of Democracy, 1919-1944

Jack Wayne Traylor

Copyright © 2018 by Jack Wayne Traylor

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

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Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Preface

As a native of Emporia, Kansas, born there in 1946—less than three years after the death, in that town, of its most famous citizen, William Allen White—I grew up amidst all things White. There was the White home at 927 Exchange Street—Red Rocks as it was and is known, for its Colorado-quarried stone exterior—home of WAW and his family during most of his life and, subsequently, the home of his son William Lindsay White and his wife Katherine. There was the nearby William Allen White elementary school, Peter Pan Park—a memorial to William Allen’s late daughter Mary White—and eventually William Allen White Memorial Drive and the William Allen White Memorial Library at Kansas State Teachers College (now Emporia State University). A William Allen White Children’s Book Award was established in 1952 at the Teacher’s College as it was known then and continues to be awarded annually at Emporia State. And there was the Emporia Gazette, after WAW’s death in 1944 under the publishing tutelage of William Lindsay White (known locally into his seventies as young Bill), though by this time he was a nationally-renowned war correspondent and journalist, and he and his wife spent much of their time in New York.

Familiarity sometimes breeds contempt as the saying goes, but it never did with me, although perhaps there was a note of complacency toward WAW in my thinking. His legacy was everywhere around me in my childhood. It seemed as if everyone had a William Allen White story or memory, and nearly all were good. For a very famous man, White seemed to be almost universally revered in his home town. Jesus stated as recorded in Matthew 13:57 and Luke 4:24-27 that a prophet is not without honor except in his own country. This seems to have applied less to White than most famous people.

My dad, the late Wayne B. Traylor, had as his most vivid memory one that was not directly related to WAW, but to Mary. As a boy, several years younger than Mary, (he lived on North Merchant Street near where she had her fatal accident in 1921), he remembered coming upon her lifeless body with some other boys, just after she had been knocked from her horse. Her death led her father to write perhaps his most famous essay, Mary White. For my mother, the late Gladys Needels Traylor, her memory was less dramatic but more directly related to WAW himself. She remembered his kindness when she sold him a war bond during World War II.

As the years passed, I continued my somewhat casual interest in the Whites, both WAW and WLW, although as I developed a more focused political interest, my views corresponded much more closely to those of the former. I eventually went on to earn a degree in history from the College of Emporia (now defunct), where WAW had attended and throughout his life revered highly. As a graduate student at what was then still known as Kansas State Teachers College, I wrote my master’s thesis in the history department on Emporia during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and part of my research involved a personal interview with William Lindsay White at the Gazette office. Of course, WAW and his written views of the period figured prominently in my narrative and analyses.

It was not until I went on to pursue graduate study in history at the University of Oklahoma in the 1970s, that I began to take a much more serious look at the career and thought, and his place in the American history of the first half of the twentieth century, of William Allen White. My focus on the history of the American West and twentieth century America in graduate school, seemed to blend well with my study of White. As I began to attempt to look at everything he had written, what struck me was the period of the last twenty-five years of his life—1919 to 1944—when his recurring theme was defense of democracy, broadly conceived (he called it Christianity institutionalized), amid a country and a world, particularly by the 1930s, that was increasingly hostile to democracy, both political and economic.

Sadly, when I attempted to publish my work near the conclusion of the 1970s, I found little interest. The director of one prominent university press that often published books of Kansas history even told me, No one is interested in William Allen White anymore. Yet my interest in his life and thought continued. As time passed, I noticed that at some point at least, there was developing a renewed recognition of him. Indeed, in spite of that director’s grim pronouncement, new books about White began to be published in the 1980s and beyond. And yet, none to this day have focused on the last quarter century of his life and his defense of democracy in a world order that seemed increasingly hostile to it. Nevertheless, some very good studies of various aspects of his life and how it related to the national and world scene, have appeared in recent years.

The first of these was written by Eastern Michigan University professor of English language and literature, E. Jay Jernigan. Published in 1983 as part of the Twayne’s US authors series and titled simply William Allen White, it not surprisingly, given the author’s credentials, focused on a description and analysis of White’s written works over the years.¹ It provides a good summary of the relationship between White’s life and career and his published works.

Next appeared Home Town News: William Allen White & the Emporia Gazette, by Sally Foreman Griffith, then Associate Professor of History at Villanova University.² Published in 1989, covering the years from White’s purchase of the Gazette in 1895 to just after World War I, it provides a detailed analysis of White’s contributions to the development of the newspaper industry in the early twentieth century.

While not a biography of WAW, Professor Jernigan published William Lindsay White, 1900-1973: In the Shadow of His Father, in 1997.³ Even though it is not a WAW biography per se, it is a detailed analysis of his son and provides a fascinating look at the relationship, not always harmonious, between the two, as well as a look at WLW’s relationship to Emporia, again not always harmonious. For a serious student of WAW, it should be regarded as a must read.

Perhaps the most analytical recent biography of William Allen White came in 1998 with the publication of Edward Gale Agran’s "Too Good a Town": William Allen White, Community, and the Emerging Rhetoric of Middle America.⁴ It covers the entirety of White’s career and focuses on his representation of a spokesman for middle America, the middle class, small towns, and the values that were important for their development in the first half of the twentieth century.

Although not a scholarly study, of note is the illustrated tribute to the life of WAW daughter Mary White, A Prairie Peter Pan: The Story of Mary White.⁵ Written by Beverley Olson Buller, it contains significant background information on the person who, for two decades, provided a pivotal personal relationship to WAW.

All of these publications offer important looks further into the life of William Allen White but still do not answer fully the question of why, in the 1920s, 1930s, and early 1940s, he was an important household name in American life. The following study will attempt to provide a clearer explanation of this.

Chapter 1

Introduction

William Allen White was one of America’s leading political observers from the end of the nineteenth century until his death in 1944. His biographers tell how hundreds sought his advice, from those in the humblest stations of life to presidents. Millions read his books, articles, and editorials. Those same biographers indicate that White reached his pinnacle of influence and popularity during the last twenty-five years of his life, the period from 1919 to 1944. But they have not fully explored the reason for this. Why did White rise to such a venerated position after World War I? The answer can be found in a thorough examination of his writings during that time and an analysis of one of the leading issues of that quarter-century. That issue, with which White dealt more than any other, was democracy and its future. But White’s idea of democracy differed from that of most other observers. White wrote, Democracy is the institutionalized expression of the Christian philosophy in ordinary life.¹ As world conditions changed over a span of twenty-five years, White altered his position on various issues and therefore seemingly contradicted himself on numerous occasions. But a thorough analysis of his writings reveals his consistent emphasis on democracy, and says much about the thinking of an old Progressive as he interpreted a changing, post-World War I America.

White had preached the importance of maintaining and strengthening democracy in America based on a Christian social philosophy, which he equated with the concept that an individual should treat his neighbors as he wished to be treated, since his early Progressive days at the beginning of the century. But his support of this doctrine did not elevate him to his highest position in American life until after World War I when democracy came under attack. Although this idea appeared in all forms of White’s writing—unpublished manuscripts and letters as well as published articles, books, and editorials—he developed his reputation as country statesman and defender of democracy after World War I through his published works, those that millions of Americans read and from which they came to know him. Perhaps more Americans read his numerous magazine articles than any other form of communication because of the wide circulation of that medium. But certainly, many also read his books and newspaper articles, including his Emporia Gazette editorials which received attention around the country. Even his speeches and radio broadcasts had a wide impact, for many publications printed them, either in excerpt form or in their entirety. White’s letters-received files in the White Papers at the Library of Congress and in the White Collection at Emporia State University testify to his regional, national, and international following, and indicate the importance of his opinion to both the famous and the unknown of the world.

White’s biographers have pointed to the 1920s, 1930s, and early 1940s as the time when he reached his peak of influence and recognition in America.² And they have cited his support of democracy and Christian principles. Some have touched on White’s beliefs about democracy while concentrating on his varied activities. Others have presented intimate personal portraits of their subject or briefly mentioned the importance of democracy and Christian philosophy to White’s thought. But none have delved into the connection between his near obsession with those ideals and his ascension to prominence during the last twenty-five years of his life.³ This study will focus on the relationship between White’s emphasis on democracy and the position of esteem he held in America from 1919 to 1944.

White was born in Emporia, Kansas, February 10, 1868, and grew up in nearby El Dorado, which at that time was still a rough frontier town. After high school, he attended the College of Emporia for three semesters, then moved on to the University of Kansas at Lawrence. He never completed requirements for a degree, but did establish something of a reputation for himself as a writer on the school newspaper.⁴ He then worked as a reporter, first on the Kansas City Journal, then on the Kansas City Star. In 1893 he married Sallie Lindsay, who became his lifelong companion and adviser. In 1895 they purchased the Emporia Gazette, and with the great public acclaim of his What’s the Matter with Kansas? in 1896, White was well on his way to fame. In that editorial he blasted the farmer-Populists as a detriment to the state’s progress, and looked to the prosperous as the hope for a stable society. White was a strong supporter at that time of those he called the best people, the leaders of government and business.⁵ It was not until after the turn of the century, when he became a leading Progressive, largely through the influence of his close friend Theodore Roosevelt, that his writings reveal a shift to an emphasis on a Christian-based, democratic philosophy. This philosophy was largely responsible for elevating White to his highest point of national fame after World War I. The phenomenon of his ascendance on a platform of defense of democracy reveals the dominant thought of an old Progressive and the importance of his ideas to the American public.

Chapter 2

Democracy, Christianity, and William Allen White

In 1936, William Allen White wrote: Jesus of Nazareth, standing on the mountain which His sermon made famous, probably sowed the seeds which have flowered into modern democracy.¹ In that sermon Jesus introduced mankind to what has become known as the golden rule: Therefore, all things whatever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.² White maintained that the golden rule was the essence of Christian thought. He believed that this doctrine had a powerful impact on the world, for it motivated men to ease the burdens of their fellow humans. Since he thought democracy was designed to encourage people to make life more pleasant for others, he saw a direct connection between it and Christian philosophy. He believed democracy and Christianity advanced over the centuries at the same pace.³

White listed the birth of Christ as one of the three great events in the world’s history. The discovery of America and—inexplicably—the beginning of the battle of the Marne during World War I were the other two, according to him.⁴ White was not as interested in the fact that Jesus came into the world to die for mankind’s sins, as he was that He came to show humanity how to live a happier life. White did not understand the doctrine of atonement but believed Jesus’s life was of even greater significance than His death. He looked upon Christ as the first complete gentleman the world had known. White admired Him because he believed He suffered persecution for His teachings in Judea, was friendly toward grafters and sinners and saw their good side yet kept His faith in humanity, then died rather than live as king over His country. To White, Jesus was a Jewish martyr who spoke out against Roman oppression and the counterfeit government of the Pharisees.⁵

White was not sure that Jesus was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, was crucified as a sacrifice for man’s sin, and was resurrected from the dead. And he did not consider the matter important, for he felt the language of the Bible was largely symbolic. He thought the Bible was valuable only as it taught men to live a happier and more useful life. The biblical miracles did not seem amazing to White, for he looked upon the twentieth-century developments in physics and chemistry as more startling than changing water to wine. White’s view was typical of the twentieth-century modernist who rejected the historic doctrines of the Christian faith.⁶

White confessed in his autobiography that the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson made a strong impact on his thinking while he was still a youth, and he carried those thoughts into his adult life. Emerson helped him understand what White called the puzzle of life. The puzzle, as White saw it, was how to direct man’s efforts toward altruistic, or democratic as he stated it, motives. The solution was through an exaltation of mankind. Man’s potential for growth, particularly the development of his kindly impulses, was infinite. Give man a chance to be altruistic, through Progressive measures for example, and the encouragement of a physical and morally healthful environment, and he would be altruistic. White got these ideas partially from his reading of Emerson. And the Bible, particularly those parts containing Jesus’ teachings, seemed