Heywood Campbell Broun Jr. (; December 7, 1888 – December 18, 1939) was an American

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

. He worked as a sportswriter, newspaper columnist, and editor in New York City. He founded the American Newspaper Guild, later known as The Newspaper Guild and now as The NewsGuild-CWA. Born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, New York, he is best remembered for his writing on social issues and his championing of the underdog. He believed that journalists could help right wrongs, especially social ills.

Career

Broun was born in

, the third of four children born to Heywood C. Broun and Henrietta Marie (née Brose) Broun. Broun attended

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

, but did not earn a degree. He began his professional career writing

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

stories in the sports section of the '' New York Morning Telegraph''. Broun worked at the ''

New York Tribune The ''New-York Tribune'' was an American newspaper founded in 1841 by editor Horace Greeley. It bore the moniker ''New-York Daily Tribune'' from 1842 to 1866 before returning to its original name. From the 1840s through the 1860s it was the domi ...

'' from 1912 to 1921, rising to drama critic. He started working in 1921 for the ''

New York World The ''New York World'' was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers. It was a leading national voice of the Democratic Party. From 1883 to 1911 under pub ...

.'' While at the ''World,'' he started writing his syndicated column, ''It Seems to Me''. In 1928, Broun moved to the

Scripps-Howard The E. W. Scripps Company is an American broadcasting company founded in 1878 as a chain of daily newspapers by Edward Willis "E. W." Scripps and his sister, Ellen Browning Scripps. It was also formerly a media conglomerate. The company is h ...

newspapers, including the '' New York World-Telegram.'' Broun's column was published in the ''World-Telegram'' until Scripps-Howard abruptly decided not to renew his contract. He was then picked up by the ''

New York Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com. It was established ...

.'' Broun's only column appeared in that paper two days before his death. As a drama critic, in 1917 Broun wrote about actor Geoffrey C. Stein in the controversial play '' The Awakening of Spring:'' " ..Geoffrey Stein gave a ludicrously inadequate performance in the important role of Melchior. It was easily the worst performance we have ever seen on any stage." Stein sued the ''

'' and Broun for libel; but in light of the judge's jury instructions, Broun and the Tribune won the case. A few weeks later, he had to review a production with Stein in the cast. His only mention of the actor was in the last sentence of his column: "We did not think Geoffrey Stein was up to his usual standards." Broun coined the statement "Posterity is as likely to be wrong as anybody else". It is used widely, often in arguments about documentation and history. From 1927 to 1937, Broun wrote a regular column, titled "It Seems to Heywood Broun", for the magazine ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...

''. His column included criticism of another employer, the ''

'', who fired Broun as a result. Broun later left ''The Nation'' for the rival ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hu ...

''. In 1930, Broun unsuccessfully ran for the U.S.Congress, as a

Socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

. A slogan of Broun's was "I'd rather be right than Roosevelt." In 1933, along with '' New York Evening Post'' Editor Joseph Cookman, John Eddy of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' and Allen Raymond of the ''

New York Herald Tribune The ''New York Herald Tribune'' was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the ''New-York Tribune'' acquired the '' New York Herald''. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and competed ...

, Broun'' helped to found The Newspaper Guild. Beginning February 8, 1933, Broun starred in a radio program, ''The Red Star of Broadway'', on WOR in Newark, New Jersey. Broun was featured as "The Man About Town of Broadway." Sponsored by

Macy's Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wi ...

, the program also included musicians and minstrels. In 1938, Broun helped found the weekly tabloid ''Connecticut Nutmeg'', soon renamed ''Broun's Nutmeg''.Gale, Robert L. ''An F. Scott Fitzgerald Encyclopedia''. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998, p. 49

Personal life

In 1915, Broun met Russian ballerina Lydia Lopokova and they quickly became engaged. She broke off the relationship to rejoin the

Ballets Russes The Ballets Russes () was an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society. ...

in 1916. On June 7, 1917, Broun married writer-editor Ruth Hale, a feminist who later co-founded the Lucy Stone League. At their wedding, the columnist Franklin P. Adams characterized the usually easygoing Broun and the more strident Hale as "the clinging oak and the sturdy vine." The couple had one son, broadcaster

Heywood Hale Broun Heywood Hale Broun (; March 10, 1918 – September 5, 2001) was an American author, sportswriter, commentator and actor. He was born and reared in New York City, the son of writer and activist Ruth Hale and newspaper columnist Heywood Broun. E ...

. Along with his friends (the critic

Alexander Woollcott Alexander Humphreys Woollcott (January 19, 1887 – January 23, 1943) was an American drama critic and commentator for ''The New Yorker'' magazine, a member of the Algonquin Round Table, an occasional actor and playwright, and a prominent radio p ...

, writer

Dorothy Parker Dorothy Parker (née Rothschild; August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) was an American poet, writer, critic, and satirist based in New York; she was known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th-century urban foibles. From a conflicted and unhap ...

and humorist

Robert Benchley Robert Charles Benchley (September 15, 1889 – November 21, 1945) was an American humorist best known for his work as a newspaper columnist and film actor. From his beginnings at '' The Harvard Lampoon'' while attending Harvard University, thr ...

), Broun was a member of the famed

Algonquin Round Table The Algonquin Round Table was a group of New York City writers, critics, actors, and wits. Gathering initially as part of a practical joke, members of "The Vicious Circle", as they dubbed themselves, met for lunch each day at the Algonquin Hotel ...

from 1919 to 1929. His usually dishevelled appearance led to him being likened to "an unmade bed." He was also close friends with the

Marx Brothers The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act that was successful in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in motion pictures from 1905 to 1949. Five of the Marx Brothers' thirteen feature films were selected by the American Film Institute (AFI) ...

, and attended their show '' The Cocoanuts'' more than 20 times. Broun joked that his tombstone would read, "killed by getting in the way of some scene shifters at a Marx Brothers show." In November 1933, Ruth Hale divorced Broun. In 1935, he married a widowed chorus girl named Maria Incoronata Fruscella Dooley (stage name Connie Madison). Seven months before his death in 1939, Broun, who had been an

agnostic Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. (page 56 in 1967 edition) Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficien ...

, converted to

Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

following discussions with then Reverend Fulton Sheen and Reverend Edward Patrick Dowling, Broun died of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severit ...

, at age 51, in New York City. More than 3,000 mourners attended his funeral at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan. Attendees included New York City Mayor

Fiorello La Guardia Fiorello Henry LaGuardia (; born Fiorello Enrico LaGuardia, ; December 11, 1882September 20, 1947) was an American attorney and politician who represented New York in the House of Representatives and served as the 99th Mayor of New York City fr ...

, columnist Franklin Pierce Adams, actor-director George M. Cohan, playwright-director

George S. Kaufman George Simon Kaufman (November 16, 1889June 2, 1961) was an American playwright, theater director and producer, humorist, and drama critic. In addition to comedies and political satire, he wrote several musicals for the Marx Brothers and other ...

, ''New York World'' editor Herbert Bayard Swope, columnist

Walter Winchell Walter Winchell (April 7, 1897 – February 20, 1972) was a syndicated American newspaper gossip columnist and radio news commentator. Originally a vaudeville performer, Winchell began his newspaper career as a Broadway reporter, critic and ...

and actress Tallulah Bankhead. Broun is buried in the Cemetery of the Gate of Heaven in Hawthorne, New York.

Legacy

* In Broun's honor, the NewsGuild-CWA sponsors an annual Heywood Broun Award for outstanding work by a journalist, especially work that helps correct an injustice. * In 1970, the J. G. Taylor Spink Award was made posthumously to Broun by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. * Broun was portrayed by the actor Gary Basaraba in the 1994 film ''

Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle ''Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle'' is a 1994 American biographical drama film directed by Alan Rudolph from a screenplay written by Rudolph and Randy Sue Coburn. The film stars Jennifer Jason Leigh as writer Dorothy Parker and depicts the mem ...

''. * In the first season of the Amazon Prime television series '' Z: The Beginning of Everything'', Broun is portrayed by the actor Tony Manna.

Footnotes

Works

* ''The A.E.F.'' (1918) * ''Our Army at the Front'' (1918) * ''The 51st Dragon'' (1919) * ''Seeing Things at Night'' (1921) * ''The Boy Grew Older'' (1922) * ''Pieces of Hate'' (1922) * ''The Sun Field'' (1923) * ''Sitting On The World'' (1924) * ''Gandle Follows His Nose'' (1926) * ''

Anthony Comstock Anthony Comstock (March 7, 1844 – September 21, 1915) was an anti-vice activist, United States Postal Inspector, and secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (NYSSV), who was dedicated to upholding Christian morality. He ...

: Roundsman of the Lord'' (with

Margaret Leech Margaret Kernochan Leech (November 7, 1893 – February 24, 1974), also known as Margaret Pulitzer, was an American historian and fiction writer. She won the Pulitzer Prize for History both in 1942 (''Reveille in Washington'', Harper) (first woma ...

) (1927) * ''Christians Only: A Study in Prejudice'' (1931) * ''It Seems to Me'' (1935) —Collection of columns * ''Collected Edition'' (1941) —Collection of columns

External links