Devils Lake Daily Journal Friday, September 24, 1982
Journal publisher closes 53 years in newspapering
by M.R. “Miff” Graham, retired Journal publisher
Not everyone has a chance to sit down and write a farewell to a career in the business he chose that has stretched to over half a century. Some just sleep through it and are carried out to boot hill. Others drop dead while shoveling their sidewalks or mowing their lawns.
I don’t know which is best but I am glad I have the opportunity of telling you I’ve enjoyed most all of the 53 years I’ve been a newspaperman. I can think of no other endeavor that would have held my interest and been such a challenge and so full of rewards as this one has.
If this were a speech I’d be choking up as I reminisce but I’ll just wipe away that tear in my eye as I type out some random thoughts. My dad bought the Journal back in 1920 and it all began for me in the fall of 1929 when I wrote my first by-line story of a high school football game. It was done in long-hand since I had only about two weeks of typing experience at the time.
I studied journalism for a little over two and a half years at the University of Minnesota when I was offered a job with the Associated Press in St. Paul, which I quickly grabbed. I edited a night wire for a morning paper in Owatonna and soon advanced to editing six afternoon “pony” calls for as many dailies three times a day and writing straight news and features.
I couldn’t have been with the AP at a more exciting time. John Dillinger, the notorious outlaw, shot his way out of an apartment house in St. Paul. Homer VanMeter, one of his lieutenants, was shot down in a vacant lot on University Avenue and I happened to be the first newsman on the scene as I drove to work from Minneapolis. We scooped the United Press on that one by an hour and a half in New York and got many letters of congratulations from member papers.
The Hamm and Bremer kidnapping cases took place when I was with the St. Paul AP and we spent many sleepless nights waiting for the payoffs in both cases. As I recall Floyd Hamilton and his thugs were the perpetrators of both kidnappings and trials were held in St. Paul when they were nabbed. Dillinger, meanwhile, shot his way loose from a cottage at a Wisconsin resort after shooting his way out of St. Paul.
When I returned to Devils Lake after two years with the AP my pop made me general manager of the Journal. One night Russ Dushinske, my school buddy at Devils Lake Central and then our managing editor, and I were returning home after an AP state meeting in Grand Forks. As we approached Michigan there were so many cars on the side roads and lining the railroad line just west of town that we thought there might be a county fair underway. We stopped and quickly saw the reason for the commotion. The second section of the Empire Builder had slammed into the parked first unit and the engine telescoped the last pullman car.
We spent half the night there getting all the information we could and returned early the next morning after filing our stories during the night. As I recall, it was one of the major rail disasters this country has ever had — 34 dead, many of them service men and women en route to posts on the west coast.
One of the highlights of my experiences at the Journal was the accomplishment of a highly successful 75th Jubilee edition our staff put together in three months work. We published one of the largest papers ever put out by a newspaper of this size, honoring the birthday of Devils Lake — 136 pages. We were all mighty proud of that one.
I had been watching the growth of offset-produced newspapers in other parts of the country and decided to investigate the closest one at Worthington, Minn. It meant a new press and new composition methods, eliminating the hot metal methods and the old flat bed press. We decided to convert and were the first daily in North Dakota to do so, a move we made in the fall of 1966 and one we were never sorry we did.
From that time on we have kept up with all the new technology that has been introduced into the business and we have constantly updated our equipment to match each advancement in production methods.
During my tenure here I was pleased that my daughter and son took part in the paper’s operation. Daughter Lynn was society editor during her days at the University of North Dakota summer vacations and son Mack began pounding the streets selling advertising for that big Jubilee edition and advanced from there to advertising manager, associate publisher, and then publisher.
One of the highlights of the “freebees” that newsmen were offered and accepted up to a few years ago was a great trip on the Navy aircraft carrier “Ranger” to Hawaii. My gosh, I can’t believe that was 20 years ago. We boarded Ranger at Oakland, CA., were five days on board, during which we built “charley horses” climbing up and down ladders as we were given the full treatment tour.
One Navy chief told us he had been aboard six years and hadn’t seen half as much of the ship as we did in five days. We lived in the officers quarters at Pear Harbor, flew on many of their aircraft, made three dives in a submarine, during which each of us manned the steering controls.
Talks and movies, hulks of some of the sunken ships in Pearl Harbor, made us feel as if we had experienced the attack by the Japs. As I remember, Scotch was only 35 cents a shot in the officers club — another reason we hated to board the Navy transport that flew us back to Alameda after seven exciting days at Pearl — with nights off to tour the hotels and clubs on the beach.
Roy Park of Park Newspapers, Ithaca, N.Y., is the buyer of the Journal and we are pleased, as we are sure you will be, with our choice. The Journal will be the 22nd daily in the Park Group, which includes 14 weeklies and a number of radio and television stations in various parts of the country. Most all of the Park newspapers are small to medium size, controlled by their local managers and are definitely a part of the communities they serve, unlike some of the mammoth chains that monopolize many areas.
Looking ahead, I am sure I have a lotta livin’ to do yet. I’m hitting a golf ball inconsistently well, if you know what I mean. It adds more excitement to the game when you’re not sure what will come next and it eliminates the monotony of par, par, par. Right, seniors? And, if ever needed, I can still bang out an effective left hook so don’t gimme a bad time, eh? I think it will be quite a while before they take me out and give me a sod blanket.
Well, enough of this reminiscing for now. What I really would like to leave with our subscribers, our advertisers, our supporters and our employees during all these wonderful years, is a great big package of the warmest thanks I can put together. No man could ask for greater friendships and finer cooperation than I have enjoyed for so long. I ask that you please extend your same warmth to the Journal’s new owners and I wish them all the luck in the world!
M.R. “Miff” Graham, Friday, September 24, 1982