Felix Muskett Morley (January 6, 1894 – March 13, 1982) was a

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

-winning

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

and college administrator from the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Biography

Morley was born in

Haverford, Pennsylvania Haverford is an Unincorporated area#United States, unincorporated community located in both Haverford Township, Pennsylvania, Haverford Township in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States, and Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, Lower Merio ...

, his father being the mathematician

Frank Morley Frank Morley (September 9, 1860 – October 17, 1937) was a leading mathematician, known mostly for his teaching and research in the fields of algebra and geometry. Among his mathematical accomplishments was the discovery and proof of the celeb ...

. Like his brothers,

Christopher Christopher is the English language, English version of a Europe-wide name derived from the Greek language, Greek name Χριστόφορος (''Christophoros'' or ''Christoforos''). The constituent parts are Χριστός (''Christós''), "Jesus ...

and Frank, Felix was educated at

Haverford College Haverford College ( ) is a private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Haverford, Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded as a men's college in 1833 by members of the Religious Society of Fr ...

and earned a

Rhodes Scholarship The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom. The scholarship is open to people from all backgrounds around the world. Established in 1902, it is ...

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. He earned a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

to study the

League of Nations The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, which resulted in his book ''The Society of Nations'' (1933) and a Ph.D. from the

Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as Brookings, is an American think tank that conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics (and tax policy), metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, global econo ...

. Morley was raised within and remained a member of the

Religious Society of Friends Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

Quakers Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestantism, Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally ...

. From 1933 to 1940, Morley worked as editor for ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'', winning, in 1936, the paper's first

, for his "distinguished editorial writing during the year." The Pulitzer Prize came after the

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

National Industrial Recovery Act The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA) was a US labor law and consumer law passed by the 73rd US Congress to authorize the president to regulate industry for fair wages and prices that would stimulate economic recovery. It als ...

was nullified by the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

. Morley had written that Roosevelt "turned his back on the traditions and principles of his party and gave tremendous support stimulus to the move for a complete political realignment in the United States." In August 1940, Morley was fired from his position as editor of the ''Post'' by the paper's owner, Eugene Meyer. Meyer, a staunch economic conservative and opponent of the New Deal, nevertheless was a major proponent of Roosevelt's

interventionist foreign policy Interventionism, in international politics, is the interference of a state or group of states into the domestic affairs of another state for the purposes of coercing that state to do something or refrain from doing something. The intervention ca ...

and the need for America to support Great Britain in the fight against Hitler. That July, the ''Post'', under Morley's direction, published an editorial criticizing Roosevelt's interventionism, arguing that the

Monroe Doctrine The Monroe Doctrine is a foreign policy of the United States, United States foreign policy position that opposes European colonialism in the Western Hemisphere. It holds that any intervention in the political affairs of the Americas by foreign ...

not only pledged the United States to defend the Western Hemisphere from European intervention but also pledged the United States not to intervene in the affairs of Europe. The editorial argued that the best way to defend American interests was to defend the Western Hemisphere and not to involve itself with European quarrels. Morley's anti-interventionist editorial offended Meyer, who fired him a few weeks later. Meyer assured that the ''Post'' would only publish pro-interventionist editorials thereafter. Later in 1940, Morley went on to succeed William Wistar Comfort as President of

.(3 April 1940)
Felix Morley Named Head of Haverford
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' He also supported

Wendell Willkie Wendell Lewis Willkie (born Lewis Wendell Willkie; February 18, 1892 – October 8, 1944) was an American lawyer, corporate executive and the 1940 History of the Republican Party (United States), Republican nominee for president. Willkie appeale ...

that year as presidential candidate. Morley said he lost faith in Roosevelt after his Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937 to pack the Supreme Court and that Roosevelt had a "debonair attitude of pulling tricks out of a bag." Morley was one of the founding editors of '' Human Events'' in 1944, where he opposed federal overreach and foreign interventionism. However, he left ''Human Events'' in 1950 because of its aggressive military stance towards the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. He was also one of the founding members of the

classical liberal Classical liberalism is a political tradition and a branch of liberalism that advocates free market and laissez-faire economics and civil liberties under the rule of law, with special emphasis on individual autonomy, limited government, eco ...

Mont Pelerin Society The Mont Pelerin Society (MPS), founded in 1947, is an international academic society of Economist, economists, Political philosophy, political philosophers, and other Intelligentsia, intellectuals who share a classical liberal outlook. It is hea ...

in 1946. After resigning from Haverford College, he continued his journalistic work at

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

and for '' Nation's Business''. He published his memoirs, ''For the Record'', in 1977. Other books he published after the war were ''The Power in the People'' (1949), ''The Foreign Policy of the United States'' (1951) and ''Freedom and Federalism'' (1959). Also published, in 1956, is his

utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or near-perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', which describes a fictiona ...

n novel ''Gumption Island''.

References

Sources

External links

American Republic or American Empire
''

Modern Age The modern era or the modern period is considered the current historical period of human history. It was originally applied to the history of Europe and Western history for events that came after the Middle Ages, often from around the year 1500 ...

'', Volume 1, Number 1, Summer 1957.
Sound recordings of speeches by Morley to the Institute for Humane Studies
at th
Hoover Institution Archives
*
Felix Morley: Democracy, Republics, & the General Will
Orrin Woodward on Life and Leadership (blog, with photograph)). {{DEFAULTSORT:Morley, Felix 1894 births 1982 deaths 20th-century American journalists 20th-century Quakers American male journalists American political journalists American Quakers Haverford College alumni Human Events people Journalists from Pennsylvania American opinion journalists People from Delaware County, Pennsylvania Presidents of Haverford College Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing winners The Washington Post people 20th-century American academics

Biography

References

Sources

Further reading

External links