A personal and civic love story...

              THE TULSA TRIBUNE, TULSA, OKLAHOMA
A personal and civic love story .
Former Tribune city editor recalls work, romance in the 1920s
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1978      5   ft
By JOSEPH A. BRANDT
My romance with Tulsa ended 50
years ago when I left the city
room of The Tulsa Tribune to found
the University of Oklahoma Press
and start the monthly Sooner Magazine for the just-established Univer-
sity of Oklahoma (alumni)
Association.
But a lingering fondness for the
Lovely Lady lingers on. One can't
help it. Tulsa is a magic American
place name, distinct, unusual, musically attuned to the vocal chords.
When you say "Tulsa" you do not
need to add "Oklahoma."
My earliest real memory of Tulsa
goes back to a bright November
day in 1907. The occasion was a
parade to celebrate the "wedding"
of Indian Territory, of which Tulsa
was tile crown jewel, and Oklahoma
Territory as the State of Oklahoma.
I saw the parade from the corner of
First Street and Boulder Avenue. A
meat packing plant was situated on
the northwest corner with a retail
outlet. It was an era when a nickle
was worth something. I bought a
nickle's worth of frankfurters and
could searely believe my eyes. I
had 25 of them! I suppose the parade
was a good one. The frankfurters
certainly were.
Other memories of the Wild West
days of Tulsa, some not so pleasant,
come to mind. The last legal public
hanging took place around 1911, as I
recall, the gallows being erected on
a vacant lot adjacent to the then
courthouse near the corner of Second Street and Detroit Avenue. I remember the occasion for the next
day we attended services of our infant church which were held in one
of the courtrooms. After service, my
father rushed mother, my sister
Ruth and me hurriedly past the site.
I stole a furtive glance at the grim
reminder of early justice still standing on the vacant lot—a silent Sunday sermon on the price of sin.
Then, in the old opera house on
Second Street, we were enthralled to
see "The Birth of a Nation," the
first motion picture I remember seeing. I was blissfully unaware of its
implications.
Last lynching
And in 1919, I was on the fringe
of the last municipal lynching. Taxi
drivers, aroused by the frequency of
being robbed or assaulted, organized a mass lynching party when a
suspect was arrested and incarcerated in the supposedly impregnable county jail on the top floor of the
new courthouse. Through some connivance, the taximen got the jailed
suspect, placed him in the cab in
which a driver had been murdered,
and virtually every taxi in Tulsa,
followed by hundreds of cars, made
a long parade to a point outside the
city where the luckless prisoner was
hanged from the limb of a tree beside the road.
After completing elementary
school, I attended Tulsa High
School, a sandstone building with
a turret, standing in the middle of
a city block bounded by Boston and
Cincinnati avenues and Fourth and
Fifth streets. As editor of the school
monthly, the Tom-Tom, I decided on
journalism as a profession. I was
graduated in 1917, the last class to
use the old building.
After four years at the University
of Oklahoma, working summers as
a reporter on The Sapula Herald
and in my senior year being editor
of The Oklahoma Daily, I was
awarded a Rhodes scholarship. In
1921 I spent the summer before
going to Oxford reporting for The
Ponca City News. In 19241 returned
to the News as city editor. However,
my parents were getting no younger
and I wanted to spend more time
with them. So I applied for a job on
The Tulsa Tribune, so named when
i Richard Lloyd Jones sold his newspaper in Madison, Wis., and acquired The Tulsa Democrat,
rechri stening it. Victor F. Barnett,
managing editor of The Tribune, replied, offering me the position of assistant city editor at a salary of $60 a
week.
In Tulsa, settled as it had been
largely by easterners after oil was
discovered, you would expect a cosmopolitan citizenry. Alas, they
proved as provincial as any denizen
of Oklahoma City might be, as Mr.
Jones discovered when, in an editorial, he urged with all the persuasion at his command—and it was
Joseph Brandt was born hi Sycamore, Ind., but came to Tulsa as a
child. He graduated from Central High School and worked bis way
through the University of Oklahoma by tending boilers and waiting
tables. Always a restless intellect, he won a Rhodes scholarship to
Oxford. In spite of many academic openings he returned to Oklahoma
to work, first on papers In Sapulpa and Ponca City and finally, in 1924,
for The Tribune. He left the Tribune to found the very successful
University of Oklahoma Press, and then was called to manage the old
and famous Princeton University Press. The University of Oklahoma
recalled him as president, and after three years he went east to head
the book publishing Arm of Henry Holt & Co. In 1949 he left the
publishing field to become dean of journalism at UCLA, a position he
held for 17 years until his retirement. He lives at Laguna Hills, Calif.
considerable—that Tulsa drop the
hick-town designation of its principal street. Change the name of Main
Street! Shock waves ran all the way
to the Red River at such heresy. So
when I told Clyde Muchmore, the
genial publisher of The News, of my
decision he urged me vehemently to
reconsider going to Tulsa.
A traumatic start
My first day on The Tribune
tended to bear out Muchmore's most
dire predictions. I arrived at the
old Tribune building at the corner of
Archer and Brady at 7:30 a.m. and
found my new city editor, Claude
Barrow, free for the moment. We
chatted pleasantly, then Claude
handed me several stories for rewrites. At 9 o'clock a jovial looking,
heavy-set man arzived. He was Victor Barnett. He went to his office in
the "morgue," as we called the library then, and, having shed his
overcoat and jacket, bore over to the
city desk a marked copy of the previous city edition.
"Barrow, are you the man who
told me he could do the work of six
city editors?" Vic demanded sarcastically, while I looked on aghast
at the public humiliation of my immediate boss.
"Yes, sir," Barrow replied, not
buckling.
"Don't you know that the streets
in Tulsa go east and west, that the
avenues run north and south, those
west of Main Street are named for
western cities, those east, for eastern cities?"
That trauma over, Claude with
some aplomb I must admit after
that dressing down, told Vic he
would like to introduce the new assistant city editor. Vic was utterly
charming, whatever rage that had
possessed him a few moments ago,
gone. We chatted amiably for a few
minutes, then Vic said the "boss"
would be coming down shortly to
meet me. Not long thereafter Mr.
Jones came down from the fifth
floor. After a short visit with Vic,
they both came over to me. Again
we talked pleasantly for a few minutes, then Mr. Jones asked me
about my education. I told him I
had English as a major and journalism as a minor at the University
of Oklahoma.
"English is fine," Mr. Jones said,
"but the modern reporter needs to
know history and economics."
I pulled out my ace. "I read modern history at Oxford."
Mr' Jones looked at me for a
moment, then turned on his heels.
"What did I say that was wrong?"
I asked, puzzled.
"Nothing. He doesn't like
England."
Well, thus started an adventure
into the last phase of the era depicted so vividly in the famous play
"The Front Page." Barnett in subsequent days did not prove to be an
ogre. Mr. Jones, although frequently
pictured as an outsider and who was
somewhat formidable on first encounter, proved in many ways ahead
of bis times. Although much that he
advocated in the editorial platform
he proudly displayed on the back
page were later accomplishments,
he had to live with the name of Main
Street!
So what follows is both a civic
and personal love story. It is of a
beautiful city and of a beautiful
woman. Beauty is not easily acquired or readily forgotten.
Tulsa fortunate
Many historians and sociologists
contend that you can tell the character of a city by the kind of newspapers which serve its citizens. In
this regard Tulsa was fortunate.
Jones, in a sense, was the outsider,
fighting a lonely battle for civic betterment. Eugene Lorton, publisher
of the Tulsa World, a staunch Republican, was regarded as the insider. Jones was an independent but
in municipal elections usually supported Democrats. The World was a
morning paper. The Tribune, the
evening paper. But when in the desperate battle for survival, Lorton
started the Evening World, offered
the combined papers for 25 cents a
week as against The Tribune's
weekly price of 15 cents, the battle
between the two newspapers often
became bitter. I was in the midst of
this fight until the Evening World
threw in the towel.
While I was assistant city editor I
wrote feature stories under the non
de plume of Astul Petrolia. During
this period, I was the sole guest of
the Mayo Hotel the night before it
formally opened. Vic gave me the
assignment and I registered as an
Englishman, wearing my favorite
suit tailored in Oxford. The hotel,
on a trial run, was fully staffed,
brightly lit. As I wandered about,
greeted by curious and incredulous
stares, I tried various tricks, none
successful, against a wary staff.
After several months of hectoring, Barrow quit and a dashing aviator, Harrison Tucker, succeeded
him as city editor. Tucker had
aplomb, not easily disturbed. When
he was, he relieved his anxiety by
flying. One day, after a trying experience, he asked me to go flying with
him. Such was my confidence in him
that I had no hesitancy. We drove to
the only "airport" in town operated
by a man named Duncan Mclntyre.
Tucker owned several planes, one a
rare French monoplane, the other a
Waco. He took me up in both planes,
and although this was my first trip in
the air, I landed both times with the
same confidence I would have had
leaving an elevator.
A beautiful woman
During those days, our hours were
frequently long, often extending onto
evening assignments. Now and then,
on holidays, one of us would assume
another's task. Thus it was that on
Thanksgiving Day, 1925, when Vic
came down for an interview with a
prospective staff member, I was sitting in for Tucker. For the moment I
had nothing to do and glanced to see
whom he was interviewing. She was
about the most beautiful young
woman I had ever seen. She was
Sally e Little, hired that day as state
editor. I had seen her by-lines in
the World as a free-lance reporter
and knew she could handle a story.
After the interview, Vic arose, shook
hands with Sallye, who walked out of
the office—but not out of my life.
When she arrived for her first day
and sat forlornly at her desk with no
instructions of what to do, I took
sympathy for her and told her about
the office. I was not aware that I had
the reputation of being a woman
hater but apparently that was the
case. Soon after her arrival, my solicitude paid dividends. Vic had assigned her to cover a costly new real
estate development alongside the
Arkansas River. Since she was to
go on a Sunday, she asked me to go
along.
I was curious to see how the other
half of Tulsa lived, since I had
bought a bungalow in a housing tract
on the north side for $65 down and
$65 a month. That Sunday as we
toured the estates, Sallye and I discovered we had many tastes and
ideas in common. We had gone in
her family's car since I did not own
one and never intended to own a
car—I loved to walk. We ended the
afternoon at her home having tea. I
walked the two miles from the south
side to the north side, unaware that
it was the first of many such long
walks.
A recent photo of Joseph Brandt and his wife, Sallye, in their California home
Toward the end of 1925 Tucker's
insouciance came to an end. After a
particularly frustrating day, he
arose dramatically from his chair,
threw the three telephones on his
i desk into the huge wastepaper basket, then the telephone directories
and finally the spindles with the
day's duplicate stories. His desk was
as clean as a freshly-diapered baby.
That done, he said loudly: "I'm
] through! You can have it." With that
defiant cry he walked out of the of-
$ fice. So I became city editor at the
| age of 26. For some reason the bick-
■■ ering stopped. Barnett never spoke a
i harsh word to me or ever gave me a
.reprimand. Our relations could not
I have been better.
|   Vic Barnett was what one can
1 truly call a born newspaperman. He
j had worked for only two employers,
:' William Randolph Hearst in Chicago
land Richard Lloyd Jones. He could
$ have made a fortune as a promoter,
f as he demonstrated in 1926 when he
f shepherded Norma Smallwood from
jthe ranks of Miss Tulsa to Miss
/America at Atlantic City. No contestant ever had a more efficient man-
lager. Vic was utterly unflappable in
\any situation. Once, when we were
/closing in on a group of gangsters
I who were starting to offer "protec-
Ition" to various businessmen, the
|two leaders of the game came to the
newsroom. Vic was in the morgue
editing copy for the next day's early
Edition. When he looked up, he saw
fhimself looking down the barrels of
Itwo revolvers.
Faces guns
I "Sit down," Vic said pleasantly,
&s if this were an every-day occurence. "I can talk while I work."
i Vic talked the men not only into
butting away their guns but ended
the interview by getting a full
confession.
1 We had a remarkable staff. Most
of the reporters were twice my age
and at first seemed resentful of my
youth, but that quickly wore off as
they realized I knew how to do my
work. Other than Sallye and Toby
jiaForge, our police reporter, I was
fiie youngest staff member. Toby
was a marvellous writer, usually
prefacing a story with a quatrain of
jrerse. William N. Randolph, later
a common pleas court judge, covered courts. George Watkins, later
t< be city water commissioner and
»en postmaster of Tulsa, covered
ie federal run, always a busy place
when Judge Kennamer was sitting. •
Kennamer had a national reputation
i>r the stiff sentences he gave convicted bootleggers.
Marie Woodson, a former Assorted Press foreign correspondent,
nered city hail and real estate.
lsa was starting to expand southward from Fifteenth Street, so real
itate was lively news. Due to a
jmily tragedy, Woodson sought release in alcohol. He always had a
hip flask and in wintertime carried
a bint in his inside overcoat pocket.
This occasioned a comical scene in
the mayor's outer office. An angry
group from the W.C.T.U. filed into
Mayor Herman Newblock's office to
protest police laxity with the bootleggers. Woodson had hung his coat
on the coat rack. When the protesters left, unappeased, one person
knocked over the rack. In no time
the outer office reeked like a distil-
ley, firmly convincing the protesters
they had been right all along about
the mayor. Woodson ultimately had
himself committed to the state hospital at Vinita, was cured, and wrote
a best-selling book called "Behind
the Door of Delusion."
Tulsa was also a way station for
itinerant reporters, either coming
from Denver or going there, or so it
seemed to me. The most notable of
these was H. Allen Smith, who was
a feature writer for us for several
months. Later, in his book "Low
Man on the Totem Pole," he characterized me as a "harum-scarum
intellectual." Another writer who
achieved a certain fame was Lester
Dent, the morse code night operator. With nothing to do except keep
a a ear for a bulletin on some extraordinary occurrence, he wrote
pulp novels and later went East
where he published the "Doc Savage" pulp magazine.
In the mid '20s the new oil rich
were settling down in mansions on
the south side, many of them tutored in manners and taste by Miss
Jackson's shop on Boston Avenue.
There was a new generation of
wealth represented by the Skelleys,
the Phillips brothers, Frank and
Waite, the former moving on to
Bartlesville, and the Sinclairs. An
older strain represented by the Clintons and others were the Tulsa Counter Club group, soon to have a rival
in the new but less fashionable Oak-
hurst Country Club.
Meets Coolidge
Tulsa was seeking a broader industrial base than oil and the Cham-
bar of Commerce conceived the idea
of sending an "Education Special"
train to the East and Midwest to lure
new industries. Composed of the
newest and most modern coaches,
the train attracted national attention
with its small band and group of
businessmen, all dressed in blue
coats, gray trousers, and straw hats,
as they paraded and dined in city
after city.
I was taken off the city desk to
make the trip. I recall one unusual
and amusing incident in Washington. We visited the White House to
shake hands with President Coolidge. I was the last person in line. I
left to visit the grounds and on exiting collided bodily with Mr. Coolidge, who was rushing to get away. I
blushed and the president, known for
his dourness, grinned broadly, as befitted one red head to another.
When the train returned to Tulsa, I
was greeted for the paper by Sallye.
I learned later that the editor sitting
in for me had asked Vic whom he
Joseph Brandt when he was Tribune city editor in the 1920s
should send to meet the train and the
reply was "Send Miss Little—she
won't be good for anything else
today." (Parenthetically I might
comment here that in those days we
were not so casual about first name
relationships as they are now. Since
most of my staff were older than me
I addressed them all as mister or
miss. However, Mr. Barnett and
most of the staff called me Joe).
Competition bitter
With the advent of the Evening
World, newspaper competition became bitter. It was a trying time for
The Tribune. The Associated Press
at that time was dominated by
morning newspapers and it had
never forgiven Richard Lloyd Jones
for being the first independent publisher to subscribe for the new
United Press created by the Scripps-
Howard newspaper chain. So there
was the constant threat of our losing
the AP franchise. We were compelled to move the United Press wire
service out of the building to a small
shack across the street and to purchase every innovation that came
along. Some of our staff quit to join
the opposition. When Sallye Little,
after a year with us, left for a higher
salary, it created temporary havoc
in our own relations. Tensions
mounted between her and me and I
suppose I was guilty of giving her
tougher assignments so as not to
show favoritism.
In spite of stiff competition, we
held our own with the Evening
World, our circulation climbing
steadily. We were scooped only once
and that at the hands of little Miss
Little. And what a scoop! On Dec. 8,
1926, a Wednesday.
She covered education for the
World. The Board of Education met
regularly each Tuesday so when our
reporter called the education office,
he was told the board had adjourned
without transacting any business.
Instead of telephoning, Sallye covered the meeting in .person. The
board did adjourn to the next day
when it leased for 99 years a portion
of the old high school grounds to
Waite Phillips for the Philtower.
Boxcar-sized type was used on the
front page by the World. We did not
have a word on the story.
That scoop almost made me a
confirmed bachelor. Toby LaForge
regularly carried to the World's police reporter the latest news of my
temperature reading and brought
back to me Sallye's. After a fortnight of frigidy between the north
and the south sides, peace was restored. When we were married Oct. 3,
1927, many staff members placed
bets that we would be divorced
within six months (We celebrated
our 50th wedding anniversary in
1977).
Several stories in the news which
seem amusing in retrospect but not
at the time they occured, added
spice to the day's work. One concerned Rev. Kerr, pastor of the First
Presbyterian church who had been
elected moderator of the national
body. He had promised me a scoop.
When he returned, I made an appointment for an interview. Homer
Stivers, then on the copy desk, who,
like Woodson, indulged, overheard
me and asked to do the interview.
After checking with Vic, I agreed.
Several times Mr. Kerr called me to
say Stivers had phoned he would be
late. Finally at 12:30, having waited
for two hours, the minister phoned
me to ask whether our man was reliable for, on his last call Stivers was
slurring his words. I assured Mr.
Kerr that Stivers was one of our
best men but I would send a substitute immediately. The only person
available at the moment was our
office boy. I told him to order a cab
and while he was doing so wrote a
dozen questions he should ask, ordering him to go to a phone booth
as soon as he had the answers. The
young man performed a miracle and
I had the story on the front page.
Another reporter later discovered
Stivers "hung over" at a nearby
drug store. His great moment had
been too much for him!
Phone harassment
The other incident seems incredible for the 20th century but it happened to me. I doubt if any other
city editor in the country ever had a
similar experience.
A revivalist named Price, sponsored by a former Presbyterian minister I knew, began his revival in the
Convention Hall. Toby, who drew the
assignment covering the opening
meeting, came in that Monday
morning, dejected. All Price did was
quote from the Bible, Toby said. So I
suggested a color story. When
Price's own publicity man brought
in the follow-up story, it largely consisted of Biblical verses. I told die
man we were not going to serialize
the Bible.
Without the fuel of publicity, the
spirit of the revival waned. But not
much, as I was to discover one Monday morning. On Sunday my ex-   2
Presbyterian friend told the congre-    ~
gation to call Joe Brandt at The   :
Tribune, giving our phone number.   ;
So when I arrived at 7 o'clock, I
found all three of my phones down
and the office boy answering a
fourth on the copy desk. I picked
up a receiver. It was Okmulgee   *
calling.
"Is this Joe Brandt?" a sleepy   \
voice said. I replied it was. "Mr.
Brandt, why has the Devil gotten
into you?"
"What's that?" I asked incredulously. She repeated the question,
then complained because I was ignoring Rev. Price. I explained as
best as I could. The other calls were
the same. They continued all day.
No one could get out on the phone.
Some calls even percolated to the
classified ad department.
At 4 o'clock, Mr. Price and his
ally came in smugly. "Now I guess
we'll get a story," Price said.
"Like hell you will. If you want
to, talk with Mr. Barnett in that
office over there."
Vic was ready for them. "Why,
your people insulted Joe Brandt. He
is one of the most Christian gentlemen in Tulsa, a deacon of the Lutheran church."
I watched the pair slink out. It
was the first Christian spirit I had
had all day!
Takes new post
Although the work was hard, the
days long, and no assistant city editor named in my stead, I enjoyed my
work on The Tribune, having no
thoughts of leaving it. I knew, however, that with two sharp sons like
Jenk and Dick — then at the Univer- -
sity of Wisconsin — Mr. Jones would
run a family newspaper. When
someone called me from the University of Oklahoma to say that its relatively new president, William
Bennett Bizzell, would be in Tulsa on ■
a certain date and wanted to talk
with me, I was curious. We set an
hour for the interview. The day and
the hour arrived for my appointment
but no president. Thinking that his
plans had been changed, I finally    *
picked up the bag of groceries Sallye   _
had asked me to buy, and went to the
elevator. Out stepped Dr. Bizzell,
almost colliding with me. We re-    ,
turned to my desk and the president sat in Vic's chair. Dr. Bizzell \
told me what he had in mind and §
that I was highly recommended to   T
do the job — really jobs, as it turned
out — which was to edit a new
monthly alumni magazine, supervise the printing plant, and ultimately start a university press.
I said I would consider it. Sallye   "
seemed excited at the prospect,
especially as we were expecting our
first child and we thought — er-   *
roneously — that the schools might   -
be better. Mr. Jones told me that he
appreciated the work I had done
and that he had plans for me but he
felt the prospect of starting a university press was too good an opportunity to miss. So the die was
cast. It had been a year since I had
had a vacation and an abbreviated
one at that, so I looked forward to
taking my two weeks just before we
moved to Norman so as to help with
problems of moving. True, I had
been out in June for two weeks with
chicken pox but I considered it far   g
from a vacation.
So when I broached my intention
of taking the last two weeks off from
work, I was surprised to hear Vic
say "But you've had your vacation.
"When?"
"Don't you remember? You had
chicken pox for two weeks."
Of course, reading this in today's
context, Mr. Barnett was merely
being logical. There was no such   '
benefit as sick leave in those days.
Dr. Bizzell did not tell me that
he expected a university press in
10 years, so he was pleasantly surprised when I brought him our first   |
book contract six months after ar-   :
rival, which was August, 1928. The   9
first issue of the Sooner Magazine,   |
as we decided to name the alumni
monthly, was published a short time
later.