Prejudice and the Press Critics: Colonel Robert McCormick’s Assault on the Hutchins Commission

Abstract

Many publishers responded negatively to A Free and Responsible Press, the 1947 report of the Commission on Freedom of the Press, but none more negatively than Colonel Robert McCormick of the Chicago Tribune. Convinced that the report was “part of a plot” to destroy the First Amendment, McCormick underwrote a 642-page rebuttal, Prejudice and the Press: A Restatement of the Principle of Freedom of the Press with Specific Reference to the Hutchins-Luce Commission, by Tribune reporter Frank Hughes. The story behind Prejudice and the Press represents an unknown chapter in the midcentury battle between conservative publishers and liberal press critics. Although Prejudice and the Press is meandering, snide, and suffused with red-baiting, it effectively rebuts a key foundation of A Free and Responsible Press.

Notes

1 FHP: Frank Hughes Papers, Col. Robert R. (McCormick Research Center, Wheaton, IL). Frank Hughes, “‘A Free Press’ (Hitler Style) Sought for U.S.,” Chicago Tribune, March 27, 1947, 36B.

2 Frank Hughes, Prejudice and the Press: A Restatement of the Principle of Freedom of the Press with Specific Reference to the Hutchins-Luce Commission (New York: Devin-Adair, 1950).

3 Orville Prescott, “Books of the Times,” New York Times, June 16, 1950, 23.

4 Frank Luther Mott, “Chicago Tribune’s Reply to the University of Chicago,” New York Herald Tribune, July 2, 1950.

5 Principal published studies of the Commission include Stephen Bates, Realigning Journalism with Democracy: The Hutchins Commission, Its Times, and Ours (Washington: Monograph, Annenberg Washington Program in Communication Policy Studies, 1995); Margaret A. Blanchard, “The Hutchins Commission, the Press and the Responsibility Concept,” Journalism Monographs 49 (1977); Jerilyn S. McIntyre, “The Hutchins Commission’s Search for a Moral Framework,” Journalism History 6 (1979): 54–7, 63; Jerilyn S. McIntyre, “Repositioning a Landmark: The Hutchins Commission and Freedom of the Press,” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 4 (1987): 136–60; Victor Pickard, America’s Battle for Media Democracy: The Triumph of Corporate Libertarianism and the Future of Media Reform (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 124–89. Important unpublished studies include Frederick Blevens, “Gentility and Quiet Aggression: A Cultural History of the Commission on Freedom of the Press” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Missouri, Columbia, 1995); Paul Mark Fackler, “The Hutchins Commissioners and the Crisis in Democratic Theory, 1930–1947” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1982); Susan Dell Gonders Golike, “A Grounded Theory Comparative Analysis of the Hutchins Plan Philosophy of Education and the Hutchins Commission Philosophy of the Press” (Ph.D. dissertation, Oklahoma State University, 1995).

6 Richard Norton Smith, The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick, 1880–1955 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997); Fred W. Friendly, Minnesota Rag: The Dramatic Story of the Landmark Supreme Court Case That Gave New Meaning to Freedom of the Press (New York: Vintage Paperback, 1982; orig. pub. 1981); Eric B. Easton, “The Colonel’s Finest Campaign: Robert R. McCormick and Near v. Minnesota,” Federal Communications Law Journal 60 (2008): 183–228; Michael S. Sweeney and Patrick S. Washburn, “‘Ain’t Justice Wonderful’: The Chicago Tribune’s Battle of Midway Story and the Government’s Attempt at an Espionage Act Indictment in 1942,” Journalism and Communication Monographs 6, no. 1 (2014): 1–91.

7 See, for example, John Calhoun Merrill, Imperative of Freedom: A Philosophy of Journalistic Integrity (New York: Hastings House, 1974), 90; Bates, “Realigning Journalism with Democracy,” 23; Blanchard, “Hutchins Commission, Press and Responsibility Concept,” 43; Daniel J. Leab, “Response to the Hutchins Commission,” International Communication Gazette 16 (1970): 106–07.

8 Tim Crook, Comparative Media Law and Ethics (New York: Routledge, 2010), 296.

9 Smith, Colonel, xix.

10 Piers Brendon, The Life and Death of the Press Barons (New York: Atheneum, 1983), 193.

11 Leo C. Rosten, The Washington Correspondents (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1937), 274.

12 Smith, Colonel, 67.

13 Robert McCormick to Arthur Sulzberger, August 16, 1946, New York Times Co. Records and Arthur Hays Sulzberger Papers, New York Public Library, box 132.

14 David Halberstam, The Powers That Be (New York: Knopf, 1979), 299.

15 Robert R. McCormick, The American Revolution and Its Influence on World Civilization (Chicago: WGN, 1945), 49.

16 Sidney Hyman, The Lives of William Benton (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1969), 251.

17 Smith, Colonel, xvii; see also 261, 350, 412, 424, 480.

18 Justus D. Doenecke, Storm on the Horizon: The Challenge to American Intervention, 1939–1941 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), 13, 33, 54, 165.

19 Robert E. Herzstein, Henry R. Luce: A Political Portrait of the Man Who Created the American Century (New York: Scribner’s, 1994), 223.

20 William Fulton, “N.Y. Magazines Called Hotbeds of Alien Isms,” Chicago Tribune, February 26, 1951, 9.

21 Smith, Colonel, 331, 328.

22 Smith, Colonel, 379, 508. See also Brendon, Life and Death, 90–91, 96, 126.

23 Smith, Colonel, 327, 331.

24 In Fact, November 24, 1941, 1.

25 Harold L. Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes, the First Thousand Days, 1933–1936, vol. 2 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1953), 212.

26 Rosten, Washington Correspondents, 196, 356.

27 Advertisement, Chicago Tribune, January 25, 1938, 8; H. L. Smith, “The Press Can Do No Wrong,” Forum, February 1939, 83.

28 Colonel Robert R. McCormick, The Founding Fathers: A Series of Addresses Broadcast Over WGN, WGNB and the Mutual Broadcasting System (Chicago: Tribune Co., 1951), 62; McCormick, American Revolution, 2.

29 Robert R. McCormick, What Is a Newspaper? A Talk Before the Chicago Church Federation at the Hotel Morrison, October 27, 1924 (Chicago: Chicago Tribune, 1924), 13, 31; Smith, Colonel, 236.

30 McCormick, What Is a Newspaper? 32.

31 Philip Kinsley, Liberty and the Press: A History of the Chicago Tribune’s Fight to Preserve a Free Press for the American People (Chicago: Chicago Tribune, 1944), 46.

32 Kinsley, Liberty and the Press, 2.

33 Friendly, Minnesota Rag, 66.

34 Robert R. McCormick, The Sacking of America: A Compendium of Nine Public Addresses Which Analyzed the Origins and Growth of Governmental Extravagance and Exposed the Relation of Excessive Taxation to the Current Depression (Chicago: Tribune Co., 1932), 11.

35 Blanchard, “Hutchins Commission,” 3–10; Margaret A. Blanchard, “The Associated Press Antitrust Suit: A Philosophical Clash Over Ownership of First Amendment Rights,” Business History Review 61, no. 1 (Spring 1987): 43–85; Robert R. McCormick, The Freedom of the Press: A History and an Argument Compiled from Speeches on This Subject Delivered Over a Period of Fifteen Years (New York: Appleton-Century Co., 1936), 85; Kinsley, Liberty and the Press, 49–50.

36 McCormick, Freedom of the Press, 85; Blanchard, “Hutchins Commission,” 3–10.

37 Arthur Sulzberger to Elisha Hanson, New York Times Co. November 8, 1938, Records and Arthur Hays Sulzberger Papers, New York Public Library, box 94.

38 Kinsley, Liberty and the Press, 49–50.

39 Smith, Colonel, 71; Halberstam, Powers That Be, 299. Hutchins changed his title from president to chancellor in 1945. Harry S. Ashmore, Unseasonable Truths: The Life of Robert Maynard Hutchins (Boston: Little, Brown, 1989), 254.

40 Tom Pettey, “‘Bob’ Hutchins, U. of C. Prexy, Is Regular Guy,” Chicago Tribune, April 27, 1929, 3.

41 Kathleen M’Laughlin, “Mrs. Hutchins Likes Us,” Chicago Tribune, May 12, 1929, 6.

42 Kathleen M’Laughlin, “U. of C. to Greet Its 30 Year Old President Today,” May 11, 1929, 3.

43 Robert Hutchins to Frank Waldrop, October 8, 1963, Robert Maynard Hutchins Collection, University of California, Santa Barbara, box 2.

44 Ashmore, Unseasonable Truths, 121; Smith, Colonel, 334.

45 Hyman, Benton, 173.

46 Milton Mayer, Robert Maynard Hutchins: A Memoir (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 256.

47 “Text of Col. McCormick’s Statement,” Chicago Tribune, February 7, 1941, 6; Smith, Colonel, 403; George Tagge, “Hutchins Tells What We Lose If We Go To War,” Chicago Tribune, March 31, 1941, 1.

48 Mayer, Robert Maynard Hutchins, 256.

49 Robert M. Hutchins, foreword to Commission on Freedom of the Press, A Free and Responsible Press: A General Report on Mass Communication (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947), v.

50 They downplayed Luce’s role in selecting members. McConnell, “Choosing a Team for Democracy.”

51 Hutchins, foreword to Commission on Freedom of the Press, Free and Responsible Press, vi; Commission on Freedom of the Press, “Complete Index of Documents,” n.d., Commission on Freedom of the Press Records, University of Washington, box 2.

52 Commission on Freedom of the Press, Free and Responsible Press, 1, 6, 9, 15–19, 23–25, 51, 92–93.

53 Commission on Freedom of the Press, Free and Responsible Press, 80.

54 Henry Luce to Robert Hutchins, November 29, 1946, Robert Maynard Hutchins Papers, University of Chicago, box 8. See Stephen Bates, “Is This the Best Philosophy Can Do? Henry R. Luce and A Free and Responsible Press,” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 95, no. 3 (2018): 811–34.

55 Smith, Colonel, 354, 255.

56 Archibald MacLeish, A Time to Act: Selected Addresses (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1943), 133.

57 Commission on Freedom of the Press, Free and Responsible Press, 26.

58 Hutchins to Waldrop, October 8, 1963.

59 Kinsley, Liberty and the Press, 65.

60 Document 66, Summary of Discussions, June 5–6, 1945, Biltmore Hotel, New York, 109, Commission on Freedom of the Press Records, University of Washington, box 4.

61 Robert McCormick to Robert Hutchins, May 3, 1945, Robert Maynard Hutchins Papers, University of Chicago, box 162.

62 Smith, Colonel, 326, 427–28; Edwin Emery, History of the American Newspaper Publishers Association (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1950), 161–62, 165.

63 Colonel Robert R. McCormick, Assaults Upon the Constitution: A Series of Addresses Broadcast Over WGN and the Mutual Broadcasting System, September 26–December 26, 1953, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Tribune Co., 1954), 41.

64 Robert R. McCormick to R. D. Paine Jr., February 24, 1947, J. B. Matthews Papers, Duke University, box 706.

65 “Outlines Plot to Destroy U.S. Press Freedom,” Chicago Tribune, March 5, 1947, 4.

66 Hughes, “Free Press (Hitler Style).”

67 “McCormick Flays N.Y. Dailies and Press Report,” Advertising Age, April 14, 1947. See also “Col. McCormick Assails Professors’ Ignorance,” Editor & Publisher, April 5, 1947, 13.

68 “The Professors and the Press,” Chicago Tribune, April 27, 1947, 22.

69 “Col. M’Cormick Hits Ignorant Press Critics,” Chicago Tribune, January 30, 1948, 3.

70 Memo, n.d., attached to Frank Hughes to Don Maxwell, April 28, 1947, FHP, box 27.

71 “McCormick Flays N.Y. Dailies”; typewritten notes on conversation with McCormick.

72 Memo, n.d., attached to Hughes to Maxwell, April 28, 1947; Robert McCormick wire to E. M. Antrim, February 21, 1947, FHP, box 26.

73 Robert McCormick to Howard Ellis, September 26, 1947, FHP, box 26.

74 Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Convention of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 17–19, 1947, Hotel Statler, Washington, DC (Columbia: American Society of Newspaper Editors, 1947), 212–32.

75 Robert R. McCormick wire to E. M. Antrim, February 21, 1947, FHP, box 26.

76 Memo, n.d., attached to Hughes to Maxwell, April 28, 1947.

77 “Conversation with Col. McCormick, Elbert Antrim, and Don Maxwell,” September 20, 1947, 3, FHP, box 26. On multiple books, see also E. M. Antrim to Robert McCormick, September 19, 1947, FHP, box 26.

78 “Conversation,” 3, 1. Early outlines bore that title. “Outline for Book,” n.d., attached to Frank Hughes to Pat Maloney, September 10, 1947, FHP, box 27.

79 “F. L. Hughes Dies; Wrote for Tribune,” Chicago Tribune, January 8, 1971, 10; Finding Aid, Robert R. McCormick Papers, 269, Col. Robert R. McCormick Research Center, Wheaton, IL.

80 “F. L. Hughes Dies”; Pamphlet titled “Propaganda in U.S. School Books,” reprinted from the Chicago Tribune, October–November 1947, J. B. Matthews Papers, Duke University, box 665; Frank Hughes, “How to Fire a Professor,” Freeman, December 3, 1951, 145–148; Frank Hughes, “Luce, Magazine Axis Fuehrer, Is Ace of Smear,” Chicago Tribune, February 23, 1944, 2.

81 Smith, Colonel, 253, 258, 299, 357; Friendly, Minnesota Rag, 168; Walter Trohan, “My Life with the Colonel,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 52, no. 4 (Winter 1959): 479.

82 Finding Aid, McCormick Papers, 269; Frank Hughes to J. B. Matthews, June 20, 1953, J. B. Matthews Papers, Duke University, box 665.

83 Smith, Colonel, 453; Finding Aid, McCormick Papers, 269.

84 Frank Hughes to Kenneth Olson, 1, August 8, 1950, FHP, box 27; Smith, Colonel, 64.

85 Finding Aid, McCormick Papers, 181, 271.

86 Frank Hughes, “Trustees Meet Today,” Chicago Tribune, December 13, 1948, 7–8; Llewellyn White and Robert D. Leigh, Peoples Speaking to Peoples (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946).

87 Frank Hughes, article manuscript, n.d., 1, FHP, box 13.

88 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 18–20.

89 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 20–21, 22.

90 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 63–74, 95.

91 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 33.

92 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 34.

93 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 30, 35, 106. From a list, Hughes asked to see two dozen documents. Barbara Woodman to Robert Leigh, January 28, 1948, Commission on Freedom of the Press Papers, Columbia University, box 11.

94 “Chicago Tribune,” n.d., Commission on Freedom of the Press Papers, Columbia University, box 11.

95 Frank Hughes, notes on interview with Edwin James, January 30, 1948, 1–2, FHP, box 27; Document 17, Synopsis of Meeting of May 8–9, 1944, 41–51, Commission on Freedom of the Press Documents and Reports, Brown University.

96 Hughes, notes on interview with James, 1; Zechariah Chafee Jr., Government and Mass Communications (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947).

97 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 17.

98 Chesly Manley to Frank Hughes, February 18, 1948, FHP, box 9; Eugene Griffin to J. L. Maloney, February 22, 1948, FHP, box 9; Frank Hughes to Howard Ellis, February 24, 1948, 1, FHP, box 27; Howard Ellis to Frank Hughes, February 25, 1948, FHP, box 27.

99 Hughes to Ellis, February 24, 1948, 1.

100 Donald L. Smith, Zechariah Chafee Jr.: Defender of Liberty and Law (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986), 188–192.

101 Howard Ellis to Louis Caldwell, March 20, 1947, FHP, box 26.

102 E. M. Antrim to Howard Ellis, July 14, 1947, FHP, box 26; Howard Ellis to Robert R. McCormick, September 25, 1947, FHP, box 26.

103 Antrim to Ellis, July 14, 1947.

104 George B. de Huszar, “The Classics and International Understanding,” in Learning and World Peace: Eighth Symposium, edited by Lyman Bryson, Louis Finkelstein, and R. M. MacIver (New York: Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, 1948), 482; Marguerite de Huszar Allen, “Living Dangerously: George de Huszar,” Chicago Review 45 (1999): 143.

105 Frank Hughes to E. M. Antrim, March 11, 1949, FHP, box 26; Frank Hughes to T. O’Conor Sloane III, January 19, 1950, 2, FHP, box 27; W. J. Byrnes to Frank Hughes, March 6, 1950, FHP, box 27; Frank Hughes to J. B. Matthews, June 20, 1953, J. B. Matthews Papers, Duke University, box 665.

106 E. Houston Harsha, “Illinois: The Broyles Commission,” in The States and Subversion, edited by Walter Gellhorn (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1952), 54–139; State of Illinois, Seditious Activities Investigation Commission, Investigation of University of Chicago and Roosevelt College (1949).

107 Nelson Dawson, “From Fellow Traveler to Anticommunist: The Odyssey of J. B. Matthews,” Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 84 (1986): 297–98.

108 Pat Maloney to W. J. Byrnes, March 7 [1949], FHP, box 26; He sometimes let Matthews vet articles before they appeared in the Tribune. See contents of folders “Illinois Investigation, 1928–April 1949” and “Illinois Investigation, May 1949–December 1949 & n.d.,” J. B. Matthews Papers, Duke University, box 262.

109 Frank Hughes to J. B. Matthews, December 27, 1949, J. B. Matthews Papers, Duke University, box 665. Hughes quoted the Hutchins questioning at length in his book. Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 522–23, 533–34.

110 Ruth A. Inglis, Freedom of the Movies: A Report on Self-Regulation from the Commission on Freedom of the Press (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947).

111 Ruth Inglis to Robert Hutchins (draft), March 8, 1947, J. B. Matthews Papers, Duke University, box 706.

112 Hughes to Maloney, June 17, 1949, 1. Hughes said he was “very much enthralled with all she told me.” Frank Hughes to J. B. Matthews, June 16, 1949, J. B. Matthews Papers, Duke University, box 665.

113 Hughes to Maloney, June 17, 1949, 1–2.

114 Frank Hughes to Pat Maloney, June 17, 1949 (follow-up), FHP, box 27; Pat Maloney to Robert McCormick, June 17, 1949, FHP, box 27.

115 Hughes to Maloney, June 17, 1949, 1; J. B. Matthews to Frank Hughes, n.d., FHP, box 27; Ruth Inglis to Frank Hughes, July 8, 1949, FHP, box 27; Ruth Inglis to Harry Bauer, July 28, 1948, Commission on Freedom of the Press Records, University of Washington, box 1; Ruth Inglis to Robert M. Hutchins, July 28, 1948, Robert Maynard Hutchins Personal Papers, University of Chicago, box 8; Robert Leigh to Members of the Commission, February 28, 1947, Commission on Freedom of the Press Records, University of Washington, box 1; Ruth Inglis to Robert Leigh, July 28, 1948, J. B. Matthews Papers, Duke University, box 706.

116 Hughes to Maloney, June 17, 1949, 1–2.

117 [Ruth Inglis], “The Myth of Monopoly in Radio and the Press,” n.d., FHP, box 26; E. M. Antrim to Charles McCahill, January 31, 1950, FHP, box 26; Cranston Williams to E. M. Antrim, February 9, 1950, FHP, box 26; E. M. Antrim to Cranston Williams, February 14, 1950, FHP, box 26; “Inglis to NAB,” Broadcasting, January 10, 1949, 67.

118 J. B. Matthews to Frank Hughes, January 6, 1950, FHP, box 13; Frank Hughes to J. B. Matthews and Ruth Inglis, January 29, 1950, 1, J. B. Matthews Papers, Duke University, box 665.

119 Hughes to Matthews and Inglis, January 29, 1950, 1.

120 Frank Hughes to Frank Mason, May 10, 1949, FHP, box 27; Frank Hughes to Pat Maloney, October 4, 1949, FHP, box 26.

121 John T. Flynn to Frank Hughes, October 31, 1949, 1, FHP, box 27; Frank Hughes to Pat Maloney, August 16, 1949, FHP, box 27; John T. Flynn to Frank Hughes, October 18, 1949, FHP, box 27.

122 Joseph McCarthy, McCarthyism: The Fight for America (New York: Devin-Adair, 1952); Arthur Herman, Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America’s Most Hated Senator (New York: Free Press, 2000), 200.

123 Flynn to Hughes, October 31, 1949, 1.

124 W. J. Byrnes to E. M. Antrim, February 9, 1950, FHP, box 26; W. J. Byrnes to Howard Ellis, March 9, 1950, FHP, box 27; W. J. Byrnes to E. M. Antrim, March 30, 1950, 2, FHP, box 26; W. J. Byrnes to Keith Masters, March 31, 1950, FHP, box 26.

125 E. M. Antrim to Frank Hughes, February 22, 1950, FHP, box 27; Tribune Co. Business Manager to W. B. Conkey Co., April 3, 1950, FHP, box 26; W. J. Byrnes to E. M. Antrim, May 5, 1950, FHP, box 26.

126 Byrnes to Antrim, February 9, 1950; W. J. Byrnes to Frank Hughes, August 21, 1951, FHP, box 27.

127 Frank Hughes to Pat Maloney, November 11, 1949, FHP, box 27; John T. Flynn to Frank Hughes, December 1, 1949, FHP, box 27; Benjamin Stolberg to John T. Flynn, December 19, 1949, FHP, box 27; Finding Aid, Benjamin Stolberg Papers, Columbia University, http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/archival/collections/ldpd_4079371/.

128 Tribune promotion manager W. J. Byrnes instructed Garrity to present Hughes’s book as “an independent venture undertaken by Devin-Adair.” W. J. Byrnes to Devin Garrity, May 19, 1950, FHP, box 27; W. J. Byrnes to Frank Hughes, May 22, 1950, FHP, box 27.

129 “First Outline for Freedom of the Press Commission Book,” November 15, 1947, FHP, box 27; [Hughes], “Conversation with McCormick,” September 20, 1947, 3; Frank Hughes, “The Professors and the Press (Tentative Title),” n.d. FHP, box 25. Other titles suggested included Consider the Source and Tinkering with Freedom. “First Outline for Freedom of the Press Commission Book,” November 15, 1947, FHP, box 27.

130 Frank Hughes to William Mitchell, August 4, 1949, 2, FHP, box 27. On Thayer’s role, see Frank Thayer to E. M. Antrim, July 2, 1947, FHP, box 26; Frank Thayer to Howard Ellis, June 14, 1947, FHP, box 26; Frank Thayer to E. M. Antrim, June 14, 1947, FHP, box 27; Howard Ellis to Frank Thayer, May 20, 1947, FHP, box 26; Howard Ellis to Frank Thayer, May 26, 1947, FHP, box 26; Frank Hughes to E. M. Antrim, April 29, 1949, FHP, box 26; Frank Hughes to Howard Ellis, May 24, 1949, FHP, box 26. On Olson’s role, see Frank Hughes to Devin Garrity, January 11, 1950, 1, FHP, box 27.

131 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 221.

132 T. O’Conor Sloane III to Frank Hughes, January 16, 1950, and attachment “Commission on Freedom of the Press,” FHP, box 27.

133 Howard Ellis to E. M. Antrim, February 25, 1949, FHP, box 26.

134 Flynn to Hughes, October 31, 1949, 1. But fact-checker Stolberg said that the book was “so closely (and brilliantly) reasoned” that “cutting it would do it serious harm.” Benjamin Stolberg to John T. Flynn, December 19, 1949, FHP, box 27.

135 Hughes to Antrim, April 29, 1949; Howard Ellis to Frank Hughes, December 2, 1948, 2, FHP, box 26; Robert McCormick to Frank Hughes, March 25, 1949, FHP, box 27; Pat Maloney to Frank Hughes, July 9 [1948?], FHP, box 27; Pat Maloney to Frank Hughes, August 4 [1948?], FHP, box 27.

136 Hughes to Ellis, February 24, 1948, 1; Frank Hughes to Howard Ellis, March 22, 1948, FHP, box 27; Pat Maloney to Howard Ellis, January 27 [1948], FHP, box 27; Robert R. McCormick to Frank Hughes, August 16, 1947, FHP, box 27.

137 Frank Hughes to Robert McCormick, October 3, 1948, FHP, box 27; Frank Hughes to Charles Smutny, March 6, 1949, FHP, box 27. On Smutny’s job at the Tribune, see Finding Aid, McCormick Papers, 99.

138 Pat Maloney to Frank Hughes, March 24 [1950], FHP, box 27.

139 Pat Maloney to Frank Hughes, June 6 [1949?], FHP, box 27. Hutchins was on leave from the University of Chicago in 1947–1948 to work for Encyclopaedia Britannica. There, according to Hughes, he was evidently having an affair with his assistant, “a very tasty dish.” Hughes to Ellis, March 22, 1948. Hutchins divorced his wife in 1948 and married the Britannica assistant, Vesta Orlick, in 1949. Ashmore, Unseasonable Truths, 292–93, 300.

140 Smith, Colonel, 395.

141 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, v.

142 Ibid.

143 Kenneth E. Olson, introduction to Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, x.

144 Frank Hughes to Frank Kirkpatrick, September 21, 1950, FHP, box 27.

145 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 7, 160, 402.

146 Document 92, “Affirmative Governmental Action to Encourage Better and More Extensive Communications,” 48, Commission on Freedom of the Press Records, University of Washington, box 5.

147 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 36, 101.

148 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 16.

149 Ruth Inglis to Stuart Dodd, December 12, 1945, J. B. Matthews Papers, Duke University, box 705.

150 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 35.

151 Antrim to McCahill, January 31, 1950; [Inglis], “Myth of Monopoly”; Frank Hughes to Ruth Inglis, January 31, 1950, FHP, box 13; Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 278–80.

152 Commission on Freedom of the Press, A Free and Responsible Press, 14, 15–16.

153 Howard Ellis to E. M. Antrim, April 17, 1947, 4, FHP, box 26.

154 In 1928, he sent material for briefs in Near v. Minnesota and the Colonel gave him $1,000 to support his research. Friendly, Minnesota Rag, 76–7; Fred S. Siebert, “My Experiences with the First Amendment,” Journalism Quarterly 56 (1979): 447, 449; Jeffery A. Smith, “Fredrick Siebert’s Absolute, Adjustable First Amendment,” Communication Law and Policy 7 (2002): 386–88.

155 F. S. Siebert to Howard Ellis, May 22, 1947, FHP, box 26.

156 Fred S. Siebert, Theodore Peterson, and Wilbur Schramm, Four Theories of the Press: The Authoritarian, Libertarian, Social Responsibility and Soviet Communist Concepts of What the Press Should Be and Do (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1956); Theodore Peterson, “Social Responsibility Thirty Years After the Hutchins Commission,” undated manuscript, 2, Theodore Peterson Papers, University of Illinois, Urbana, box 20. On the role of Four Theories in popularizing the ideas of the Hutchins Commission, see also McIntyre, “Repositioning a Landmark,” 137.

157 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 229–64.

158 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 239–42. Thereafter, the more scholarly de Huszar drafted a book, tentatively titled Progress of the American Press, which he characterized as “a thorough critique of the ‘golden age’ theory.” George de Huszar to Ruth Inglis, January 11, 1953, J. B. Matthews Papers, Duke University, box 657. He later said that the University of Minnesota Press had accepted it. George de Huszar to Ruth Inglis and J. B. Matthews, July 9, 1956, J. B. Matthews Papers, Duke University, box 657. Evidently it never appeared.

159 Paul Starr, The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications (New York: Basic, 2004), 126–27.

160 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 425–47.

161 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 535–54; Milton Mayer, “How to Read the Chicago Tribune,” Harper’s, April 1949, 24–35.

162 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 107–10, 497–505.

163 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 477–93.

164 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 33.

165 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 80.

166 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 89.

167 Howard Ellis to E. M. Antrim, September 16, 1947, 3, FHP, box 26.

168 Hughes to Matthews and Inglis, January 29, 1950, 2.

169 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 24.

170 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 159, 233, 461, 469, 524.

171 Frank Hughes to W. J. Byrnes, May 16, 1950, 1, FHP, box 27; “Book Exposes Hutchins-Luce Press Attack,” Chicago Tribune, June 11, 1950, 1, 6.

172 “Book Exposes Hutchins-Luce Press Attack,” 1.

173 “Book Exposes Hutchins-Luce Press Attack,” 6.

174 Hughes to Byrnes, May 16, 1950, 2.

175 Benjamin Stolberg, “Answer to the Absurdities of the ‘Press Commission,’” Chicago Tribune, June 11, 1950, H3.

176 “Chicago Tribune’s Reply to the University of Chicago,” New York Herald Tribune, July 2, 1950. Mott had earlier made the same point in a review of A Free and Responsible Press. Frank Luther Mott, review of A Free and Responsible Press, Political Science Quarterly 62 (1947): 441, 443.

177 Prescott, “Books of the Times.”

178 Leslie E. Claypool, “News Bias Charge Attacked by Chicago Tribune Writer,” Los Angeles Daily News, July 8, 1950, University of Chicago Press Records, box 287, folder 5.

179 Robert L. Randall, review of Prejudice and the Press, Indiana Law Journal 26 (1950): 122–24. In the New York Times Book Review, Erwin D. Canham, editor of the Christian Science Monitor, said the Commission’s report merited “[a] disinterested and hard-hitting critique,” but Hughes’s “bitter” book “grossly distorts” the facts. Erwin D. Canham, “Attack, Counterattack,” New York Times Book Review, June 25, 1950.

180 “Writer Raps Report,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 11, 1950.

181 Charles Merriam to Robert Leigh, September 28, 1950, Charles Merriam Papers, University of Chicago, box 65.

182 Milton Mayer, “My Life as ‘Frank Hughes,’” Commonweal, September 8, 1950, 527–31.

183 Mayer, “My Life,” 528, 530, 527 (emphasis in original).

184 Harry Field and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, The People Look at Radio (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1946); Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Patricia L. Kendall, Radio Listening in America: The People Look at Radio–Again (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1948).

185 [Inglis], “Myth of Monopoly in Radio and the Press.”

186 “Conversation with Col. McCormick,” September 20, 1947, 3; Pat Maloney to Howard Ellis, September 15 [1947?], FHP, box 26; Frank Thayer to Howard Ellis, August 8, 1947, FHP, box 26; Hughes to Mason, May 10, 1949, 2.

187 Hughes to Mason, May 10, 1949, 2.

188 Hughes, Prejudice and the Press, 18.

189 W. J. Byrnes to E. M. Antrim, April 28, 1950, FHP, box 26.

190 Frank Hughes to Devin Garrity, December 12, 1951, 1, Devin Garrity Papers, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, box 12.

191 Senator John W. Bricker, Congressional Record, July 17, 1951, 8257; transcript of Paul Harvey broadcast of May 4, 1952, Congressional Record, May 12, 1952, A2891–92; Murray N. Rothbard, The Betrayal of the American Right, edited by Thomas E. Woods Jr. (Auburn: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2007), 121; Robert Welch, The Politician (Belmont: Belmont Publishing Co., 1963), 32. Some conservative outlets gave the book positive reviews on publication, too. Garet Garrett, “What Do You Read?”, American Affairs, October 1950, 198; Burton Rascoe, “The Professors and the Press,” American Legion Magazine, July 1951.

192 Pickard, America’s Battle for Media Democracy.

193 Transcript of Robert R. McCormick broadcast of August 11, 1951, Congressional Record, August 29, 1951, A5444.