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Westbrook Pegler, Caustic Columnist, Dies at 74

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Westbrook Pegler, Caustic Columnist, Dies at 74 oa 25 Jun 69 THE NEW YORK TIMES, 11 Westbrook Pegler, Caustic Columnist, Dies at 74 Continued From Page 1, Col. 7 her, 1938, created a sensation charged that a segment of the for its defense of lynching. "As play, "A Case of Libel, shown one member of the rabble," it on Mr. Sullivan's program was began, "I will admit that I a distortion of a libel suit that said, 'Fine, that is swell,' when Mr. Pegler lost to Quentin Rey- the papers came up that day, nolds, the writer, in 1954. telling of the lynching of two Mr. Pegler had been in de- men who killed the young fel- clining health for the last three low in California, and that I years following surgery for can- haven't changed my mind yet cer of the stomach. His death for all the storm of right- was attributed to a heart seiz- mindedness which has blown ure. He was operated upon re- up since." cently for cancer of the colon. He survived the storm of public criticism, although he Denunciator in Chief began to lose the friendship of By ALDEN WHITMAN many of his newspaper friends, In 29 years as a newspaper including Heywood Broun, a columnist—from 1933 to 1962 fellow columnist, who called —Westbrook Pegler established Mr. Pegler "the light- a reputation as the master of heavyweight champion of the the vituperative epithet. There upperdog." was scarcely a public figure In the early days of the who sooner or later was not New Deal Mr. Pegler was a included in his pantheon of supporter of President Roose- malign and malicious individ- velt, but his attitude changed uals. Associated Press after 1936 to one of excoria- He roared in print against Westbrook Pegler tion. Mr. Roosevelt was as- President Franklin D. Roose- sailed for his proposal to in- crease the size of the Supreme velt, referring to him as a with being an originator of the "feeble-minded fuehrer" and as Court, for welfare legislation, staccato "Hearst style" of writ- for his appointees and then "Moosejaw," and saying: ing a news article. The elder "It is regrettable that Gui- for a host of other actions. Pegler was later dismissed for Other New and Fair Dealers seppe Zangara hit the wrong a time from the Hearst organi- man when he shot at Roosevelt came out of Mr. Pegler's type- zation for remarking that a writer no less scathed. Vice in Miami." Hearst newspaper resembled "a Mr. Pegler had in mind an President Henry A. Wallace was screaming woman running I"Old Bubblehead;" Assistant assassination attempt in 1933, down the street with her throat in which Mayor Anton Cermak iSecretary of State A. A. Berle cut." Jr. was a "blood-thirsty bull of Chicago was killed. Young Pegler entered the Mrs. Roosevelt was labeled newspaper business in 1910 as twirp; Justice Felix Frankfurter "La Boca Grande," the big of the Supreme Court was a a $10-a-week employe of The "fatuous windbag;" Fiorello H. mouth, and, after her husband's United Press in Chicago. "Bud," death in 1945, she was con- LaGuardia,"the reform Mayor of; as he was called in those days, New y,calk, was "the little pa- sistently called "the widow was described as "a raw kid, Roosevelt." is freckled as a guinea egg." drone of the Bolsheviki." To Mr. Pegler, President• His career was interrupted N6t even J. Edgar Hoover, di- Harry S. Truman was "a thin- for two years of high school, rector of the Federal Bureau lipped hater," an abuse that before The United Press sent Mr. Truman returned in kind him first to St. Louis and then by describing the columnist as to Texas as a bureau manager. "a guttersnipe." of Investigation, was immune. For 11 years, until 1944, Mr. "A nightclub fiy-cop" was how Pegler's column, "Fair Enough," Mr. Pegler characterized him. appeared in The New York Those on the periphery of World-Telegram, a Scripps- In 1916, he joined the press agency's staff in London as a public life also felt the rasp of Howard paper, and newspapers the columnist's displeasure. Elsa throughout the country to foreign correspondent. When the United States en- Maxwell, the party-giver, came which it was syndicated. His to be called "a professional articles in 1940 exposing labor tered World War I, Mr. Pegler enlisted in the Navy and served magpie," and Walter Winchell, union racketeering won him a a fellow columnist, was dis- Pulitzer Prize. until the close of the conflict. On his return to the United missed as "a gents-room jour- These articles dealt with, nalist." among others, George Scalise, States, he became a sports- president of the Building Serv- writer for U.P., because, he Invented 'George Spelvin' ice Employes International Un- said, he had noticed that "the Mr. Pegler's style was free- ion in New York. In the result- big salaries in newspapers usu- swinging. He pictured himself ing official scrutiny of his af- ally were paid to sports men." as the average man, quick to fairs, Scalise was sent to Sing And, at the urging of Floyd wrath and slow to cool off. For Sing prison for 10 to 20 years Gibbons, the war correspon- this purpose he invented for forgery and embezzlement. dent, he changed his byline "George Spelvin, American," in- Scalise complained that he had from J.W. Pegler to Westbrook to whose mouth he placed a been "Peglerized." Pegler. good deal of his livid prose. At the same time, in Califor- As a sportswriter, Mr. Pegler One example was this attack nia, Willie Bioff, a movie union developed a tough and rowdy on Harold L. Ickes, the New leader and convicted procurer, way of presenting events, much Deal Secretary of the Interior: and other corrupt unionists in contrast to the prevailing "Hey, Ickes, you penny-ante were sent to jail after Mr. style of coverage. It made him moocher, tell us about the two Pegler's newspaper exposures stand out, as did his choice of times you put yourself away of their activities. funny or fantastic events to. lin the Naval Hospital in Wash- Switching the the Hearst- describe. ington for three dollars a day owned King Features Syndicate In 1925, Mr. Pegler went to all contrary to law, and you a in 1944, Mr. Pegler changed the work for The Chicago Tribune, rich guy able to pay your way Frame of his column to "As Peg- writing, for $250 a week, a in regular hospitals as all other ler Sees It." At one time it ap- daily sports story that was sick civilians have to do. Why peared in 186 papers, but by syndicated around the country. you cheap sponger, you couldn't 1962 the total was down to 140. On dull days he wrote about rent a hall room in a pitcher- James Westbrook Pegler other topics, and this edged and-bowl fleabag in Washington came of a newspaper family. him by degrees into becoming a for three bucks a day. You He was born Aug. 2, 1894, in columnist of national affairs. know who paid the overhead Minneapolis, the son of Arthur His first column, in Decem- on your hospital bargain, don't James Pegler, who was credited, ,.. you? Well, I did! And George a road with a wench in the right. Following his break with Spelvin. We paid it." raw." He also implied that the King Features, he wrote a Mr. r egler's irascibility was former war correspondent held monthly article for two years aroused not only by persons leftist political views. for American Opinion, the or- and institutions he considered gan of the John Birch Society. malevolent, subversive, Commu- In the resulting trial, in In one article, according to nist or traitorous, but also by which Louis Nizer represented Oliver Pilat, who wrote a criti- natural phenomena that caused Mr. Reynolds, Mr. Pegler con- cal biography of Mr. Pegler, him discomfort. In this vein, ceded that 130 statements he the columnist "developed an he once fulminated against a had made about Mr. Reynolds entirely new contention that rainstorm that kept him house- were not the truth. Mr. Reyn- Americans with Jewish names bound in Connecticut for sev- olds was awarded $175,001 who came from countries like eral days. damages against the columnist, Russia and Poland were instinc- Toward the end, Mr. Pegler the Hearst Corporation and tively sympathetic to Commu- was being edited in ways he dis- Hearst Consolidated Publica- nism, however outwardly re- liked. The word "Ford's" was tions. spectable they appeared." removed from "Ford's Fund for At one point during the trial Mr. Pegler gave up writing the Republic." An attack on for- in 1954 Mr. Nizer stepped up for the Birch publication when mer President Dwight D. Eisen- to Mr. Pegler on the witness it rejected a piece he wrote hower and Henry R. Luce of stand to show him a docu- about Chief Justice Earl War- Time magazine was killed as ment. "Stand down there where ren in 1964. was a column that began, you belong," ordered Mr. Peg- Mr. Pegler was quite candid "There is something wormy ler, pointing to the counsel about his hates, which mul- about our State Department." tables. tiplied with the years. "For "Please, Mr, Pegler," Fed- myself, I will say that my hates Charged Censorship in '62 eral Judge Edward Weinfeld always occupied my mind The break apparently came interposed, "I'm running this much more actively and have when some of Mr.
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