| Summary: | American journalist, educator, editor, and author. Correspondence. Most of the items date from the 1930s to the 1980s, but some newspaper clippings date from 1844. The materials document Long's journalsitic and teaching careers. He taught for two years at Southern Illinois University. Long organized the International Conferenece of Weekly Newspaper editors. The official publication of the organization was the "Grassroots Editor."; Howard Rusk Long was a tall, personable man with a backwoods Missouri drawl. His easy-going manner sometimes concealed a personality with an enormous drive. He was far sighted, ambitious and able. He believed he was incredibly fortunate to have been at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale during some of the years of the school's greatest growth and he played a pivotal role in that growth.Dr. Long was especially interested in community newspapers. He said they "truly perform a valuable service as moderators of the community forum." He lamented that community newspapers were being supplanted by large, regional newspapers owned by corporations which increases special interest control and reduces freedom of the press. "The real action is often in the smaller papers, whose editors are in close contact with the people," he believed.Howard R. Long was born July 30, 1906 to C.M. and Carrie (Bramlett) Long in Columbia Mo. He married Margaret Carney on May 3, 1931, at Fort Smith, Ark. When he was in high school, his family lived in Dixon, Ill. That is where his career in journalism began. He got a part time job in the mail room of the Dixon Evening Telegraph and then moved over to the newsroom as a reporter. As time passed his interest in journalism increased, as did his experience. Later years found him editing and managing weekly papers in West Virginia and Missouri; copy editing in Arkansas; and serving as manager of the Missouri Press Association.His education also focused on journalism, writing and understanding the people around him. He earned three degrees from the University of Missouri: a bachelor's with a double major in journalism and English (1930), and later, a Master's and a Ph.D. While at school he was editor of the Missouri Student and managing editor of the Missouri Showme magazine.Soon after he earned his baccalaureate, he became manager and editor of the Nicholas Republican in Richwood, W.Va., (1930-31). From there he moved to the Fort Smith, Arkansas, Southwest American, where he worked on the copy desk and also for the Associated Press, In 1934 he became the editor and publisher of his own weekly, the Crane (Mo.) Chronicle. His editorials won him a state wide reputation, and were frequently reprinted in the Kansas City Star. He returned to the University of Missouri as a faculty member in 1940 and during a 10-year career there, he earned a master's degree in journalism (1941) and a Ph.D. in rural sociology (1948), and moved up to the rank of professor.In 1953 he got the chance he had wished for to put his own ideas into action, when he accepted the chairmanship of the fledgling department of journalism at Southern Illinois University. He became the department's first chairman, and held the position until 1970. When he began, the journalism department had about eight teachers and 50 students. He worked in a cluster of quonset huts on SIU campus, where journalism courses were taught and The Egyptian, the campus newspaper, was printed as a laboratory project. At that time, the department of Journalism was not accredited. So accreditation became Long's top priority but not his only interest.He became the moving force in the origin of a number of innovations which have become established institutions. Among them are the following:The department's "Journalism Day" was expanded to "Journalism Week" whose main feature is the presentation of SIU annual Elijah Lovejoy Award for exceptional journalistic courage, named for a former courageous Illinois newspaper editor. The award became a coveted honor in journalism.He founded the American Penal Press contest, which still makes its home at SIUC, the Mid-America Press Institute with member newspapers throughout the Midwest; and established the SIU Press journalism book series called "New Horizons in Journalism."In 1968 he founded the Mid-America Press Institute, an organization of about 120 newspapers that sponsored a variety of workshops each year.Long founded the International Conference of Weekly Newspaper Editors in 1955 "to help the smaller editors." One of the newspaper articles from which portions of this biography is extracted tells how that conference became international in scope, and calls it a characteristic Long saga. "Well," he drawled, "that is one of the things that just sorta happened. First the Canadian weeklies started coming in and then, when I traveled around the world after spending a year teaching in Taiwan. I made a point of meeting weekly newspaper editors and inviting them to join."This collection contains a copy of a written invitation to one of these conferences. In it he wrote, "We want you here in Illinois for our annual conference this year. Come prepared to work--all morning, all afternoon, all evening. There will be no free booze, courtesy of the local liquor stores; no free trips, courtesy of the local chamber of commerce; not even a free cup of coffee, courtesy of the local Baptist minister. But get down here and bang heads with all of the other fellows in ECWNE. 12 hours a day: you know d?#* well your going to learn something."Not only did they accept the invitation, but editors from many countries have come to Illinois for the annual meeting of the conference at Pere Marquette Park and to spend time as visiting professors in Long's department.The official publication of the International Conference of Weekly Newspaper Editors, was the Grassroots Editor. With $800 to provide "a magazine for weekly newspaper editorial writers, it began as a quarterly in 1960, "but we made it a bi-monthly because so many of the subjects were current and topical," he said.Dr. Long said the Grassroots Editorreally turned into an advocacy journal in 1966, when he wrote an editorial about the trial of Arkansas editor Gene Wirges, who was convicted of perjury and sentenced to three years in the penitentiary "on trumped up charges of perjury." Long began his editorial by saying "it is not a pretty thing to sit through a judicial Devil's Mass and watch a man railroaded to the penitentiary." "It was a burlesque of justice. It was outrageous, unbelievable." Long recalls. Since then, Grassroots Editorhas dealt with many controversial subjects which Long said causes "some of the fat cats of journalism to hate us to pieces."Although contributors to Grassroots Editorare not paid, "some of the best journalists in the world write for us," Long observed. "I think without equivocation we have been in the forefront and on the liberal side of every issue in American journalism over the past ten years," he said. "It circulates all over the world and its' appreciated all over the world."In his campaign for accreditation, Long wanted a department that was more than just vocational training. he hand picked faculty members from other areas to augment his staff. He deemed it appropriate that students should receive a rounded liberal arts background. Long's work paid off in 1960, when three sequences were accredited under the journalism major. They were news-editorial, community newspaper and advertising.Long stubbornly refused to move his department into a new communications and fine arts building several years ago, holding out for a journalism school in its own home. He finally achieved his goal -- a school designed by him to provide the most modern journalism education plant anyone could wish.[When discussing the School of Journalism, one of the newspaper articles we have been quoting here makes this interesting comment about Dr. Long's administrative style and personality:] The school still is considered part of the College of Communications, a relationship Long chooses to ignore. He has assured the school's distinctive identity, attracting top faculty members from newspaper ranks and visiting professors from all parts of the world to his SIU bailiwick.Two years before Dr. Long retired, he stepped down as director of the School of Journalism, but still, he chose to retain his position as fiscal officer of the Daily Egyptian. That newspaper was one of the great loves of his life. He had guided the campus newspaper as it moved from a twice-weekly publication to a community oriented daily in 1961. By then the paper hired students to write, edit, take photographs, and learn the production side of newspaper work. By then, also, it was funded entirely from donations and advertising and was a viable business enterprise in its own right.While musing on the newspaper's growth, Dr. Long recalled, "I also furnished the blueprint in making the Egyptian. That was two hard years of work. The paper has developed pretty much under my formula."Dr. Long was a strong advocate of the free press, and would often come to the defense of his student paper. John Epperheimer, a graduate of Long's program (1968) wrote the following: "I have very clear memories of H.R. shouting into a telephone from his the Egyptian office in a Quonset hut, standing up to a very angry University vice president and thus allowing me, a green undergraduate reporter, to do my job without interference from the administration."In one of his many the Egyptianeditorials, Dr. Long proudly wrote, " At one time or another, the Egyptianhas been in conflict with nearly every group on campus and in the community with nearly every administrator in the University." Continuing he wrote, "It becomes apparent that the people most bitter in their denunciation of the Egyptianare those who have tried and failed to control the EgyptianAnd there we have it.the real issue of any medium of communication is who is in control."At the time of Dr. Long's retirement, the Egyptian, its quonset hut days far behind it, was housed in quarters that would make most professional journalists envious. It had a $120,000 payroll and a staff that included about 70 students. Twelve of the 21 staff members at the school were permanent faculty members and former professional journalists.Dr. Long also had important international responsibilities. He was a visiting professor at the graduate school of journalism at the National Chengchi University in Taipei, Taiwan, from 1957-58, having been sent there by the United States State Department to help ease the crisis which had developed over the question of freedom of the press. During that year's stay he also served as guest editor of the China Post and taught members of the country's working press.In 1964 he traveled extensively in Great Britain, West Germany, France, Denmark and Sweden as a State Department consultant on newspaper publishing and education. At other times he enjoyed teaching under various assignments in Europe as well as Asia. He also worked with the press in Canada, the Philippines, Ireland and Scotland.On May 15, 1979, Dr. Long received Brigham Young University's Meritorious Service Award.Dr. Long wrote or edited several books. Among them are: Fifty Years of Community Service, history of the Southwest Missouriannewspaper; The People of Mushan: Life in a Taiwanese Village, University of Missouri Press, 1961; Main Street Militants, edited by Howie, 1977.Howard R. Long not only impacted institutions, he also influenced people. "Dr. Long was a mover at a time when SIU-C administration officials were also movers." George Brown, retired professor of journalism, said, "He developed ideas and gave them to others to implement. He got one idea assigned it to someone else and then moved to the next idea."But Long also had his critics. Some said that he ruled his department with an iron hand. (That is both a criticism and a compliment, depending on which side of the fence you are looking from.) He summed up his own administrative style this way. ".and that is my philosophy-- administrators have to organize, let the others do the work." His philosophy about teaching was equally strict. After four or five years of teaching news writing, new faculty members were assigned to teach theory because Long believed by then they are out-of-date on news gathering techniques.At one point, the journalism faculty accused him of allotting himself nearly a full page to reply to what he considered inaccuracies about him published in other newspapers. This arose from a controversy surrounding press freedom, the use of editorial space, where nine The Egyptiannews staff writers had to buy space in the newspaper to express their views. They were refused space on the editorial page, according to the letter, because the editorial was critical of the University administration. Others would point to Long's distance between himself and the students, and his numerous visits abroad. Members of one faculty committee considered him high handed in his direction of the school.In 1972, after more than 19 years of directing journalism education at Southern Illinois University, Dr. Long asked for a change of assignment to part-time teaching and financial officer of the Daily Egyptian. That was just two years before his mandatory retirement and he thought it was about time to start winding down his duties.Looking back on his years at SIU, he said, "It has been my luck to be here during the Golden Age of SIU-C." "I've been able to accomplish much more than I ever dreamed of." "I had one of the greatest opportunities of anyone of my generation, being at a dynamic, wellfinanced institution that allowed me to build a program the way I thought it should be done." He said the SIU School of Journalism has "the finest Journalism staff in America. The faculty is predominantly young, and the potential is unbelievable."When he retired in 1974 the ranks of journalism majors had grown to 400, with 18 faculty members, and offering bachelor's, master's, and Ph.D. degrees. Long reported, the school now ranks "in the top 10" among the nation's journalism schools, "by any way you care to measure." It is one of the biggest in terms of enrollment, although not "massive." A survey at that time showed it was highly regarded in the field of journalism education.Dr. Long retired in 1974 from the University after having served 21 years in one capacity or another. After that, each year the School of Journalism sponsored the Howard Rusk Long Honor Lecture in recognition of Long's contributions to the program.After retirement he remained active in research and writing. Working on a book about his grandfather Long's career as a Confederate soldier and another about the role Daniel Boone played in bringing some of his mother's family and others to Missouri.Howard R. Long died at 12:59 p.m. Tuesday, August 30, 1988, of pneumonia complications, at the University of Missouri Hospital in Columbia. He was 82 and had been living in Columbia for the past three years. He was survived by his wife, two children, Nancy Bearss of Naples, Fla., and Joseph C. Long of Norman, Okla; two sisters, eight grandchildren and two greatgrandchildren.(The above biography is, for the most part, taken from newspaper articles about Dr. Long. The originals can be found in the collection in box 8 fd.16. Other information used in this biography was found throughout the collection.); Dr. Long had friendships which literally stretch around the globe. He kept up a lively correspondence with editors, educators, students, and friends. This collection contains that correspondence.He had many interests and hobbies. He was a real opera buff. He probably knew more about grand opera than anyone in Carbondale. At one time he spent six days in Europe and in those six days, he saw six operas. He was an avid Missouri football fan and was interested in agriculture. He collected Japanese prints, watercolors, and paintings. He also collected near eastern porcelains and books of poetry. He was an active member of Rotary International and of the Free Masons. But his first love was journalism. He served at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale as chairman of the journalism department from 1953 to 1970 and director of the School of Journalism from 1970 to 1972. He retired in 1974. The correspondence of this collection reflects all those activities and interests but is related predominately to his activities in the department, then School, of Journalism. The photographs negatives, slides and picture post cards which came to the Department of Archives and Manuscripts as a part of this collection have been transferred to the Photoarchives. There are roughly 2000 photographs, 2000 negatives (mostly in strips), 200 slides and 200 picture post cards. They may be obtained from the Photo Archives by referring to the Howard R. Long Collection, MSS 1690
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