C. P. Trussell
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Charles Prescott Trussell (3 August 1892 – 2 October 1968) was an American journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner. His front-page bylines in ''
The Baltimore Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries. Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tr ...
'' and ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' were familiar to generations of newspaper readers. He was awarded a
Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
for journalism in 1949.Rothe 1950, pp. 609–610, 5th paragraph


Early life

Charles Prescott Trussell (pronounced Tru-SELL) was born August 3, 1892, in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
, the son of Homer M. Trussell and Margaret Shuck Trussell. Homer Trussell traced his forebears to 17th Century
colonial New England The New England Colonies of British America included Connecticut Colony, the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth Colony, and the Province of New Hampshire, as well as a few smaller short-lived colon ...
; a great-great uncle had fought at the
Battle of Bunker Hill The Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on June 17, 1775, during the Siege of Boston in the first stage of the American Revolutionary War. The battle is named after Bunker Hill in Charlestown, Massachusetts, which was peripherally involved in ...
as a New Hampshire militiaman. Homer learned printing as a teenager and went on to edit and publish newspapers in Ohio, Michigan and Illinois. Margaret Trussell was educated at Baltimore Female College, a forerunner of Goucher College. After her husband's early death from cancer, Margaret kept Homer's local weekly paper in Berwyn, Ill. going for a time, then moved to her native
Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
, where she eked out a living for herself and three children teaching piano and voice at their
Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...
home.Rothe 1950, pp. 609–610, 2nd paragraph From infancy, Trussell was called by his middle name, Prescott. Garbled by his siblings, this became "Peck" and the nickname stuck throughout his professional and personal life. Before becoming a journalist, Peck Trussell tried his hand in the lumber business, in Baltimore's
C&O Railroad The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P. Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Richmond t ...
office and, with a friend in Springfield, Ill., buying and selling automobile tires. Their entire stock, piled in a back lot, was stolen by thieves one night, ending this brief attempt at entrepreneurship. During
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, Peck volunteered for duty but was turned down. Though an acceptable height of 5 feet 10, his slight weight failed to make the minimum poundage. When finally drafted, he put weights in his hat, wore it to his next physical, and passed. He was assigned to officer candidate school in Camp Gordon, Georgia, and emerged a second lieutenant of infantry, but the war ended before he was assigned overseas.Rothe 1950, pp. 609–610, 3rd paragraph


Career

Peck's father and uncle had both been journalists and his older brother, P. L. Trussell, had begun a newspaper job. Now back in Maryland, Peck followed suit by joining the Baltimore American and soon after, was offered a position at the Baltimore News. In 1917 he was hired by ''
The Baltimore Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries. Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tr ...
'' for $21 a week, where he stayed for 24 years.Krock, Arthur (Fall 1968),"Peck Trussell Takes His Wit Into Retirement", ''New York Times House Organ'' He spent time on the police beat, covering robberies, shootings, brawls and other public disturbances. He was then promoted to copy editor and in 1925 was named city editor of the Sun. In 1932, he was transferred to the Sun's Washington Bureau and began his work as a Washington correspondent, which would dominate the rest of his career. With President Roosevelt's incoming
New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...
, the U.S. government ballooned in size, power and reach. Trussell covered the federal agencies and the White House --- at a time when
FDR Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
's press conferences were informal and reporters gathered around his desk. Congress would eventually become Peck Trussell's main beat. At the outbreak of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
in Europe in 1939, Trussell covered the U.S.
Lend-Lease Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States (), was a policy under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and other Allied nations with food, oil, ...
policy, which helped keep Britain going during her dark days, and the long congressional fight to establish a peacetime draft to buttress the U.S. Armed Forces. In late 1941, Trussell accepted an offer to join the Washington bureau of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''. When
Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Re ...
was attacked on December 7, 1941 Peck remembered seeing the gates of the Japanese Embassy swing shut as he was hurrying down to the Times Washington office. The next day he was present in the House Press Gallery as the President told a joint session of Congress that the attack marked "
a date which will live in infamy The "Day of Infamy" speech, sometimes referred to as just ''"The Infamy speech"'', was delivered by Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States, to a joint session of Congress on December 8, 1941. The previous day, the Empi ...
." That morning's war extra had carried Peck's story announcing the President's address and that Congress was ready to vote for war and do whatever else the White House asked to defeat Japan. Since Congress funded and maintained oversight of the armed services and nearly everything else needed to win the war, the Times congressional staff filed a large part of the paper's front-page copy. This included war news direct from the early battlefields. Trussell's stories included detailing the sinking of enemy ships in Japanese waters and U.S. setbacks in the
Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...
, which soon fell to the enemy. Also during the war, Trussell wrote articles for
The New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine Supplement (publishing), supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted man ...
, including "Congress Looks and Listens", and occasionally pinch-hit on radio for Fulton Lewis Jr., a prominent commentator for Mutual Broadcasting. He also contributed numerous articles to Nation's Business and other publications. After the war, the American Defense Conference at Rio de Janeiro in 1947 offered Trussell a foreign assignment covering President Harry Truman and his family in Brazil. Postwar Washington assignments also included unification of the armed forces, the
Marshall Plan The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative enacted in 1948 to provide foreign aid to Western Europe. The United States transferred over $13 billion (equivalent of about $ in ) in economic re ...
to speed European recovery, statehood for
Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
and
Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
, and a series of congressional investigations by the
House Un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...
and a Senate unit under Senator Joseph McCarthy into suspected communist influence in government. One of Trussell's front-page articles dealt with the dramatic face-off between former State Department official
Alger Hiss Alger Hiss (November 11, 1904 – November 15, 1996) was an American government official accused in 1948 of having spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Statutes of limitations had expired for espionage, but he was convicted of perjury in con ...
and
Whittaker Chambers Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938), ...
, who accused Hiss of spying for the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
. Trussell enjoyed the chance to bring personalities on
Capitol Hill Capitol Hill, in addition to being a metonym for the United States Congress, is the largest historic residential neighborhood in Washington, D.C., stretching easterly in front of the United States Capitol along wide avenues. It is one of the ...
alive to readers. In a profile on Rep. Carl Vinson, who was in charge of defense matters in the House, Peck wrote, "Mr. Vinson is a Georgian with a large nose on which he rests spectacles half-way down and looks over them instead of through their lenses" while questioning generals and admirals. Elsewhere in the story, he quotes Vinson's response to the idea of becoming
Secretary of Defense A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in som ...
: "Shucks, I'd rather run
the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a metony ...
from up here" at the Capitol. Peck had strong opinions about the scope and limits of a journalist's role. Shortly after he joined ''The New York Times'', an idea was floated at a staff meeting that news reporters in the bureau might submit editorials from time to time.
Scotty Reston James Barrett Reston (November 3, 1909 – December 6, 1995), nicknamed "Scotty", was an American journalist whose career spanned the mid-1930s to the early 1990s. He was associated for many years with ''The New York Times.'' Early lif ...
of the Times asked Peck what the practice was at his former paper. Trussell answered, "Absolute separation of church and state. Reporters give the news, not opinions." Peck Trussell retired from journalism in 1965.


Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize is an award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature, and musical composition in the United States. Peck Trussell was awarded the
1949 Pulitzer Prize The following are the Pulitzer Prizes for 1949. Journalism awards *Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, Public Service: ** ''Lincoln Journal Star, Nebraska State Journal'' for the campaign establishing the "Nebraska All-Star Primary" presidential ...
in Journalism for "Distinguished Reporting on National Affairs"As printed on the ''Pulitzer Prize award certificate'' (1 June 1949) during a career spanning the installation of the
New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...
,
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
and
the Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of Geopolitics, geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term ''Cold war (term), co ...
. This accolade for day-to-day performance, rather than for a particular story or one-topic series, was a rare citation for the Pulitzer award.Staff Writer (3 October 1968), Obituary of CP Trussell, ''The New York Times''


Personal life

In 1923 Peck married Beatrice Wilkins Tait, the daughter of veteran political leader Galen L. Tait, a tax lawyer and government official who guided
Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
's
Republican Party Republican Party is a name used by many political parties around the world, though the term most commonly refers to the United States' Republican Party. Republican Party may also refer to: Africa *Republican Party (Liberia) * Republican Part ...
as state chairman. The couple had two sons, Charles Tait and Galen Douglas, who in time also became journalists, the third set of Trussell brothers to do so.Rothe 1950, pp. 609–610, 7th paragraph In addition to receiving the Pulitzer Prize, Trussell was a life member of the Sigma Delta Chi journalistic fraternity, a governor of the
National Press Club Organizations A press club is an organization for journalists and others professionally engaged in the production and dissemination of news. A press club whose membership is defined by the press of a given country may be known as a National Press ...
, a member of the White House Correspondents Association and a member of the Gridiron Club, a journalists group known for good naturedly lampooning government figures at a white-tie dinner where the
U.S. President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...
makes a command performance. In later years, Trussell walked with a cane and, being a lifelong smoker, suffered breathing difficulties. After Peck retired from the Times,
Arthur Krock Arthur Bernard Krock (November 16, 1886 – April 12, 1974) was a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist. In a career spanning several decades covering the tenure of eleven United States presidents he became known as the "Dean of Washington ne ...
, former bureau chief and its elder statesman, wrote: "Peck's subjects have been human beings. But he has reported their activities with a monastic objectivity which resists the pressure of personal convictions as strong as those held by any man. Hence he has fulfilled the highest obligation of the responsibility imposed on the American press by its constitutional guarantee of freedom ... This was the heritage he left to his profession and to ''The New York Times''."


Death

C. P. Trussell died of
pulmonary edema Pulmonary edema, also known as pulmonary congestion, is excessive edema, liquid accumulation in the parenchyma, tissue and pulmonary alveolus, air spaces (usually alveoli) of the lungs. It leads to impaired gas exchange and may cause hypoxemia an ...
in Washington DC on October 2, 1968, at the age of 76.


References


Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Trussell, Charles Prescott 1968 deaths The Baltimore Sun people The New York Times people Journalists from Chicago 1892 births Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting winners 20th-century American journalists American male journalists