- Clement Quirk Lane
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Clement Quirk Lane was the city editor for the Chicago Daily News from 1942 to 1958.[1] Born in 1898, he joined the Chicago Daily News after high school, where during Prohibition he worked the crime beat. As described in Capone: The Life and World of Al Capone, legend has it that during "slow nights," Lane and counterpart James Doherty of the Chicago Tribune invented often-comical nicknames for many of Chicago's underworld figures, including "Greasy Thumb" Gusik, "Loudmouth" Levine, and "Violet" Fusco.[2]
Later he became a columnist, where in 1938 he invented the characters "Oxie O'Rourke" and "Torchnose McGonigle."[3] These were figures in the vein of predecessor Chicago newspaperman Finley Peter Dunne's "Mr. Dooley" and "Mr. Henessey," stand-ins for the "voice of the people."[4] Chicago Daily News columnist Mike Royko would take up that tradition afterwards with his character "Slats Grobnik." According to a Time magazine article about his work in January, 1944, Lane said, in reference to his creation, Oxie was "the perfect answer for a newspaperman; he can't be scooped because he knows everything. He is the voice of the people west of the tracks."[5][6]
Lane was known for his fiery temper; according to his obituary he "ruled the city staff ... in fiery justice."[7] A reporter who began his career under Lane, James McCartney, described him later as "the archetype of the old-fashioned city editor, an Irish Catholic, reformed alcoholic with a high school education, a great mane of white hair ... irascible, immensely honest, tremendously talented, the personification of the newspaper ... and very, very difficult to work for."[8] As McCartney alluded to, later in life Lane became involved in Alcoholics Anonymous, helping to establish it in Chicago after that group's founding in Akron, Ohio, in 1935.[9]
References
- ^ "From West of the Tracks". Time. January 24.
- ^ Kobler, John (1971). Capone: The Life and World of Al Capone. Da Capo Press. pp. 432. ISBN 0306812851, 9780306812859.
- ^ "From West of the Tracks". Time. January 24.
- ^ "From West of the Tracks". Time. January 24.
- ^ "From West of the Tracks". Time. January 24.
- ^ "The Press: From West of the Tracks". 24 January 1944. Time Inc.. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,803094,00.html. Retrieved 8 March 2011.
- ^ Stepp, Carl. "A Dying Breed". American Journalism Review. http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=1571. Retrieved 3/1/11.
- ^ Stepp, Carl. "A Dying Breed". American Journalism Review. http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=1571. Retrieved 3/1/11.
- ^ Stepp, Carl Sessions. "A Dying Breed". December 1994. American Journalism Review. http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=1571. Retrieved 8 March 2011.
External links
Categories:- American newspaper editors
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