Newspaper editor William Allen White once observed that “in the country town we gain in contact with our neighbors. We know people by the score, by the hundred.…Our affairs become common with one another, our joys mutual, and even our sorrows are shared.…It all makes life pleasantly livable.” And for half a century, he was the country’s most influential spokesman for small-town America; his tragedy was that he never quite believed what he said.

Editor’s Life Seen as “Cautionary Tale” Kansas Newspaperman Takes Over Local Paper Editor Flees Angry Downtown Crowd; Takes Revenge in Print AN EDITORIAL: What’s the Matter With Kansas? Local Newspaperman Hailed in East Kansas Hails Rough Rider; Attacks Trusts White Breaks With GOP;Joins Progressives Kansas Novelist Sentimentalizes Current Social Issues White Returns to Republican Fold; Urges “Harmony” and Backs Harding Editor Runs for Governor; Seeks To Laugh Klan Out of Kansas White Backs Hoover, Landon, and New Deal; Sees No Contradiction Editor Backs Allies But Declares “Yanks Are Not Coming” A Last Interview With Emporia’s Sage