He died in ‘the thick of the fight’ –
Roosevelt leads nation in tribute to Clapper’s integrity and ability
Cabinet joins public and press in voicing loss
By Scripps-Howard Service
President Roosevelt and other leaders in any fields have paid tribute to Raymond Clapper, whose death in an airplane collision over the Marshall Islands was reported yesterday.
To Mrs. Clapper, Mr. Roosevelt wrote:
The tragic event which has brought such sorrow to you and the children emphasizes once more the constant peril in which correspondents do their work in this war. It was characteristic of Ray’s fidelity to the great traditions of reporting that the day’s work should find him at the scene of action for first-hand facts in the think of the fight.
I share personally the grief which has been laid so heavily on you and yours and offer this assurance of heartfelt sympathy, in which Mrs. Roosevelt joins.
Stephen T. Early, White House Secretary, said:
He died as he had lived – selflessly – impervious to personal danger, a working newspaperman, with one thought uppermost; to get his facts right where the story was hottest. Honest, upright, resourceful and industrious, he had the faith and courage of a great reporter. He was just that.
Secretary of State Hull:
I was privileged to know Mr. Clapper as a friend and held him in the highest esteem. He was one of our most eminent and distinguished journalists who earned the confidence and respect of the people.
Gen. George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff:
I have been shocked and distressed. During the past four years I had come to feel a sincere friendship for him and great respect for his integrity. He had seen much of the war on many fronts where he displayed the courage and adventurous spirit of a true soldier.
Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau:
His writings had the quality of statesmanship.
Acting Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson:
His devotion to the broad welfare of his country made him one of the outstanding journalists of our time. The manner of his death indicated his willingness to accept any hazard in his search for truth.
Attorney General Francis Biddle:
…A great reporter, a fine writer and an honest critic – a newspaperman’s newspaperman.
Postmaster General Frank C. Walker:
**He fell in the line of duty well performed just as any brave soldier or sailor… He aimed solely at the truth, and his words carried the sincerity of his fine intellect…
Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox:
He was a great newspaperman and his sober, thoughtful reports will be sorely missed. We shall always remember him as a great friend of the Navy.
Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes:
Raymond Clapper dealt in facts and his published opinions rested firmly on these facts as he saw them. While he might have remained at home in one of those comfortable strategic armchairs – telling us what was wrong or right with the way the war is being won, he elected to go where the lead was flying and find out first-hand. He was that kind of newspaperman.
Secretary of Commerce Jesse Jones:
He was a credit to the press.
Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins:
A great reporter who had both brains and conscience.
Lt. Gen. Carl A. Spaatz:
When he visited Africa, nothing was too difficult or too dangerous for him… He died exemplifying the motto of the great newspapers for which he write: “Give light and the people will find their own way.”
Roy W. Howard, Scripps-Howard Newspapers president:
Ray Clapper has written himself into a place in contemporary journalism to which no words of his associates can add luster. He graced a profession of which he was proud and which was proud of him. First, last and always a reporter, he valued fact about every element in the journalistic alloys which combine to make a daily newspaper. Integrity which was never challenged; strong convictions untainted by bias or prejudice; a tolerance so deep-rooted as to command respect even from those in complete disagreement, won for Ray Clapper the most enviable award within the gift of his fellow journalists, the title “newspaperman’s columnist.”
G. B. Parker, editor-in-chief of the Scripps-Howard Newspapers:
Reporting is the foundation of all good journalism – accurate, sincere reporting, interestingly written. Then there are the trimmings - interpretation
W. W. Hawkins, Chairman of the Board of Scripps-Howard:
…one of the very few truly great reporters. He actually fulfilled the dreams and ambitions of all newspapermen. He will remain a shining example.
Hugh Baillie, United Press president:
…one of the finest newspapermen of this generation… a fearless reporter in his personal contact with news figures as well as in his operations at the war fronts.
Kent Cooper, Associated Press general manager:
…a career marked by brilliance since his youth on the Kansas City Star. His earnestness and warmth of personality, his tolerance and fairmindedness won him affection and respect.
Barry Faris, International News Service general manager:
…further evidence of the terrific toll this war has taken in the ranks of the country’s foremost newspapermen. He was held in high esteem by the entire newspaper fraternity.
Lowell Mellett, executive assistant to the President and former editor of the Washington Daily News:
Ray’s death is a personal blow to millions. I know because I have seen the faces of people as they received the news. The faces not only of personal friends, of whom he had so many, but of others who knew him only as a name or a voice. He had become something important in our lives.
Peterborough, Diarist of the London Daily Telegraph:
American journalism has lost one of its ablest and most fair-minded columnists. He had a great gift for reaching conclusions that appealed to the sound common sense of the average American.
Byron Price, Office of Censorship director:
One of the great figures of journalism. Every newspaperman has lost a friend.
Elmer Davis, Office of War Information director:
A great reporter – a man of integrity. His death exemplifies the high courage of the men who are bringing the news from the fronts.
Bert Andrews, chief of the New York Herald-Tribune Washington Bureau:
The affection that his colleagues held for Ray Clapper is his best eulogy. His felloe workers not only respected him for his craftsmanship but loved him for the warmth that was in his great soul.
Charles Gridley, President of the Gridiron Club:
**For millions, he provided an invaluable sense of balance in his interpretation of national and world affairs. He was that rarest of individuals, a man without prejudices.
Arthur Krock, chief of the New York Times Washington Bureau:
His fatal errand was self-assigned. By no normal concept of duty was Ray Clapper obliged to run the risks of a war front again, risks he already had run and knew well. But his concept of duty was not normal, and he pursued it to a hero’s death, to the great loss of honest journalism and a vast audience which, knowing how honest that journalism was, respected and depended on it. Of him it can be said, as of very few of us who were his contemporaries, that he had at the end “a peace above all earthly dignities – a still and quiet conscience.”
Charles G. Ross, chief of St Louis Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau:
…One of the great reporters. People turned to his column because of its beautiful clarity and because they sensed its complete honesty and the hard and faithful work back it is. The column was a perfect expression, therefore, of the most wholesome things in what we call the American way of life.
Eugene Meyer, Washington Post publisher:
The Post is proud is have been the first to sponsor and encourage his column of comment… His honesty stuck out all over him. His application to the job at hand was unremitting. He has the strong body and sturdy mind that we associate with the best human products of our Midwest. He belongs in the hall of fame of America’s greatest newsmen.
Ernie Pyle:
Ray was a great newspaperman and a gallant human being. I am heartsick.
Walter Lippmann:
We have lost him when we are going to need him the most. He has perished in the act of preparing for the supreme work of his life, which was to make us see truly what this terrible war is, and to make us understand, while we still have the chance, how we can win it greatly. None can replace him, for the absolute honesty of his mind and his purpose had won for him the absolute confidence of all his colleagues and of the responsible public.
Lyle Wilson, chief of the United Press Washington Bureau:
Ray Clapper marched in the front ranks of his profession.
Mark Sullivan:
What made him utterly likeable as a man was the same quality that made him effective as a commentator. Among those who came in contact with him, his simple heartiness made friends and kept them; and in his writing this quality gave him persuasiveness. It enabled him to express his views with sturdy directness, but without stirring hostility on the part of those who differed with him – these not only differed with him – these not only respected him; they composed a large part of the immense circle of friends and admirers he had.
Ned Brooks, Standing Committee of Congressional Correspondents chairman:
The 600 members of the Washington Press Corps had deep admiration and respect for his ability and his devotion to the ideals of his profession. Freedom of the press had no champion more ardent.
Paul Wooton, White House Correspondents Association president:
In the exemplary work of Ray Clapper, the press has a fine legacy. He was enterprising, considerate, sincere. There was nothing reckless in his makeup, but as a matter of routine he flew across oceans and through flak so he could write more realistically. An ace of journalism has gone down.
John T. O’Rourke, Washington Daily News editor:
He has been an unfailing example of everything that is fine and decent and intelligent in newspapering. Millions will miss him, but none more keenly than his fellow newspapermen who know that his writing mirrored a warm and generous spirit, one incapable of dealing with anything but the truth.
Arthur Hays Sulzberger, New York Times:
Your loss is sustained by all newspapermen, as it is in fact by the while community.
Helen Reid, New York Herald-Tribune vice president:
I am heartsick. He was a fine craftsman and a beautiful soul.
James Wright Brown, Editor & Publisher:
He added distinction to journalism.
Herbert Bayard Swope:
Journalism has lost one of its strongest champions of all that is right and decent. He was never more needed than now.
Earl Godwin, radio commentator:
Ray Clapper spared himself nothing in his zeal for finding the truth, and he spared no one in the telling of it. We respected his ability; we revered his splendid fairness; and we loved his personality. Truly, the American people have lost a gentleman of the press.
Lowell Thomas:
The quality that distinguished Ray Clapper was his ability to remain in all circumstances and in spite of all temptations and excitements, unfailingly level-headed. Aside from being so brilliant, he was a swell fellow.
Raymond Gram Swing:
A clear-headed, practical servant of true democracy.
Fulton Lewis:
Every real reporter has the dream-ideal to be what I believe Ray Clapper was – honest, truthful, careful in the extreme not to use the power of his profession to I jure an innocent man, but equally determined without personal fear to tell the truth.
George Fielding Eliot, military expert:
He never wrote or spoke a phony word.
The Association of Radio News Analysts, in a resolution:
He raised the standard of both journalism and broadcasting.
Wendell Willkie:
He had the indescribable something that makes a reporter a great newspaperman.
H. V. Kaltenborn, radio commentator:
One of the great figures of American journalism… perhaps the most influential of Washington correspondents.
Majority Leader Barkley (D-KY), speaking in the Senate:
He died as a soldier in the cause of democracy.
Senate Minority Leader White (R-):
Mr. Clapper’s ending was a glorious one. He was on the battle line, serving the public for which he had labored for many years.
Sam Rayburn, Speaker of the House:
A great newspaperman.
House Majority Leader McCormack (D-MA):
He made a great contribution to American thought.
House Minority Leader Martin (R-MA):
Journalism has lost a great personality.
Thurman Arnold, Associate Justice of the U.S. Court of Appeals:
A fighting and courageous liberal. Those who knew him lose an unfailing source of inspiration and help.
RAdm. Land, Maritime Commission chairman:
A national loss.
Paul V. McNutt, Federal Security Administrator:
Three things marked him – honest, sincerity and ability. I am deeply moved.
Rep. George H. Bender (R-OH), addressing the House:
His ability to report objectively and without bias was typical of the best historical mind.
Rep. A. S. Mike Monroney (D-OK), a former newspaperman:
I know of no American whose judgment has been so consistently accurate.
Senator Ball (R-MN):
Even when he became a nationally-known columnist, he went out and got his news firsthand.
Senator Hatch (D-NM):
He was a brave man, a courageous man, and a man of honor and integrity.
Senator Hill (D-AL):
He was making outstanding contributions to the winning of the war and the building of a lasting peace. He gave his life for his country.
