George Creel
George Edward Creel (December 1, 1876 – October 2, 1953) was an American investigative journalist and writer, a politician and government official. He served as the head of the United States Committee on Public Information, a propaganda organization created by President Woodrow Wilson during World War I.
George Edward Creel
December 1, 1876
October 2, 1953 (aged 76)
Mount Washington Cemetery
Independence, Missouri
Journalist
Head of the United States Committee on Public Information
Early life and education[edit]
Creel was born on December 1, 1876, in Blackburn, Missouri, to Henry Clay Creel and Virginia Fackler Creel, who had three sons, Wylie, George, and Richard Henry (Hal). His father came to Missouri from Parkersburg, Virginia, and bought land in Osage County, Missouri; he was college educated, and served in Virginia legislature. A captain of the Confederate States Army during the Civil War, he did not succeed in the Missouri post-war economy as a farmer and rancher and became an alcoholic. Virginia provided for the family by keeping a boarding house in Kansas City and by sewing and keeping a large garden in Odessa, Missouri. All her children became productive members of society: Wylie Creel, a businessman; George, a journalist and writer; and Richard, a doctor, who served as Assistant Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service.[1]
His alcoholic father did not leave as deep an impression on Creel as did his mother, who inspired his passion for women's suffrage.[2] The family moved frequently around west-central Missouri in Creel's early years, living for a time in Wheatland, Hickory County, Missouri, then Kansas City before finally settling in Odessa, Missouri, in 1888.[3] He often said that, "I knew my mother had more character, brains, and competence than any man that ever lived."[4] His mother also encouraged his love for literature. Although Creel did not receive much formal education, as his mother pulled him out of school system, and was mainly home-schooled, he credited his mother for his fair knowledge of history and literature including classics, such as the Iliad.[2] In 1891, the then fifteen-year-old Creel ran away from home for a year, supporting himself by working at a succession of county fairs across Missouri and at odd jobs when available.[3] Despite his resistance and rebellion, Creel did manage to receive some formal schooling, while attending Kansas City Central High School, Odessa High School, and Odessa College for one year in Odessa, Missouri.[3] He said of himself that "an open mind is not part of my inheritance. I took in prejudices with mother's milk and was weaned on partisanship."[5]
Career[edit]
Early career[edit]
In 1896, he began his first formal job at the Kansas City World.[2] He was hired for $4 a week, starting as a reporter, but eventually moved up to write feature articles. He also wrote a book review column and covered social happenings. He was eventually fired because he felt it was wrong to discuss a wealthy man's daughter eloping with her coachman in the paper and apparently his editors didn't agree.[2]
After his termination, he was given a free train pass to Chicago by a well-wisher, and then hopped a cattle train to New York earning his fare by tending stock. He found an opportunity to work as a free-lance joke writer for William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer's comic supplements.[2] As a 1913 Collier's profile put it, he was "shutting himself in his cheap room in a mechanics' hotel; he ground out jokes by the dozens, by the hundreds, jokes in bales and jokes in bundles."[2] But he didn't sell any his first month and survived by shoveling snow. Soon, he sold four jokes to Hearst's Evening Journal and became a regular with many periodicals.[2]
On March 11, 1899, he went back to Kansas City with his friend, Arthur Grissom, a poet, who married into rich Kansas family, to start a newspaper, The Independent. After only ten months, however, Grissom withdrew from the partnership.[3] At age 23, Creel became the sole owner, editor, and publisher of The Independent.[2] In the paper he dealt with many social issues including women's suffrage, single tax system, and public ownership of utilities. He was also a strong supporter of the Democratic Party and aggressively fought the policies and practices of Thomas Pendergast.[2] Creel was not afraid to put politics or party affiliation aside for the greater public good, however. He backed Democrat Joseph W. Folk in a successful run for Missouri Governor in 1904.[3] Then, in 1908, Creel came out in support of Republican Herbert S. Hadley and his gubernatorial campaign. Hadley, an ardent reformer like Folk before him, was the first Republican elected Governor of Missouri in nearly forty years. Said Creel in one of his newspaper editorials regarding party affiliations, "When a man becomes so besotted with partisan prejudice as to exalt party above the interest of the community, state or county, that moment he ceases to be a good citizen."[3]
In late 1909, Creel left Kansas City and the Independent behind for a new political battlefield in Colorado. Reformer John F. Shafroth, a native of Fayette, Missouri, and an acquaintance of Creel's, had been elected Colorado's governor in 1908. Despite the Independent being profitable, he chose to give the newspaper away to a pair of young women who aspired to be newspaper publishers.[3] Leaving Kansas City with just fifty dollars to his name, Creel soon found employment as an editorial writer for the Denver Post.[3] He gained national publicity by calling for the lynching of 11 senators who opposed the public ownership of Denver's water company.[2] He resigned promptly after and had a brief stint working at William Randolph Hearst's Cosmopolitan. He moved on to write editorials for The Rocky Mountain News (1911–1912) where he was a strong supporter of Woodrow Wilson.[2]
In June 1912, Creel was appointed Police Commissioner of Denver by the recently elected reform mayor, Henry J. Arnold. Creel immediately used the office to launch several ambitious reform campaigns, such as ordering police officers to give up their clubs and nightsticks,[6] as well as a campaign to destroy the red-light district in downtown Denver,[7] while providing a tax-funded rehabilitation farm for women leaving prostitution.[8] His time as police commissioner ended after he began pushing the Mayor Henry Arnold to live up to campaign promises. Although he was dismissed by the mayor for the creation of dissension, he was lauded nationally for his watchdog efforts.[2]
Then in 1916, he became heavily involved in President Wilson's re-election campaign.[2] Working under Bob Wooley, the Publicity Head for the Democratic National Committee, Creel wrote newspaper features and interviewed various people.[2] In March 1917, Creel discovered that many of the military leaders wanted strong censorship of any criticism of the war.[2] Creel sent President Wilson a brief in which he argued for "expression, not suppression" of the press.[2] Wilson approved Creel's proposal and appointed him as chairman of the Committee on Public Information.[2]
Personal life[edit]
Creel was married to actress Blanche Bates from 1912 until her death in 1941.[15] The couple had two children, a son named George Jr. and a daughter named Frances.[16] In 1943, he married Alice May Rosseter.[17] During the last years of his life Creel resided in San Francisco until he died on October 2, 1953, at age 76.[18] He was buried in his family plot at Mount Washington Cemetery in Independence, Missouri.[19]