Outrage, Passion, & Uncommon Sense: How Editorial Writers Have Taken on and Helped Shape the Great American Issues O F the Past 150 Years

""Today's editorials-and of course there are exceptions-inform but do not inspire,"" writes Pulitzer Prize winner Gartner. ""Sometimes, they lack opinion. Usually, they lack passion."" Not so of the many editorials Gartner selected for this book, which focuses on editorials written by four men whom the editor calls ""the four greatest editorial writers in the history of this nation"": William Allen White of the Daily Gazette of Emporia, Kansas; Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune; Henry Watterson of the Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal and Vermont Royster of the Wall Street Journal. Editorials by these writers and others are divided up by subject matter, from controversial, highly opinionated pieces on war and race to those about the business of journalism itself and even a chapter on editorials revolving around Christmas (""'Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus'"" remains the most famous line ever to appear in an editorial in an American newspaper,"" says Gartner). The book is beautifully illustrated with historical photographs and page reproductions, and the editorials alongside them are still relevant today, though readers who haven't recently studied American history may not benefit as much from some of the older pieces. (Editorials from the Civil War era, for example, may be more interesting to Civil War historians than to the casual reader.) An alternative way of looking at history, the book will be a useful volume not only to those interested in the history of journalism, but to history buffs with a more general interest in America. Photos.