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G. B. DEALEY OF THE DALLAS NEWS by Ernest Sharpe

G. B. DEALEY OF THE DALLAS NEWS

By

Pub Date: March 23rd, 1955
Publisher: Henry Holt

The biography of Texas' foremost journalist follows a starred career that in many ways parallels the growth of the state since the 1870's, but it is written with the kind of back-patting naivete that rouses first boredom, then suspicion. Cutting to the bare bone of the book, Mr. Dealey's accomplishments were many. He came to Galveston with his family from England when he was eleven and four years later began as office boy for the Galveston Daily News. Rising steadily to positions of increasing responsibility on the business end, Dealey was eventually appointed as the man to go out and study possibilities for opening a branch of the paper elsewhere. This was done in Dallas. By now married to Olivia Allen from Missouri, Dealey moved there with his family to become manager of the Dallas News, then publisher and owner, then city planner and slum clearer for Dallas, and finally in the 1940's ""The Dean of American Journalism"" and the man for whom Dealey Day is celebrated at the University. One the face of it, that is fine, but we object to the way his praises have been unremittingly sung, to the mistakes he never made and to the lack of any real evidence that could have made Texan journalism as fascinating as it must be. Another stitch in the American success pattern.