DEGLER: Angry Man Of The Press

It was J. Edgar Hoover, of all people, who came up with the most descriptive of nasty remarks about this self-styled ""True Crusader of the Press"" and ""Misogrammarian"". Hoover said that Pegler suffered from ""mental halitosis"". ""Under the American system,"" says Mr. Pilat, ""a social critic may legitimately be allowed the widest latitude in writing, even when his views would be considered poor taste if uttered publicly, or criminal if translated into action."" Here is the life story of one of the most famous of such critics, beginning with his news-bound father, inventor of the ""Hearst style"", down through his own sportswriting days, his feud with Heywood Brown, and his increasingly radical-rightist politics as expressed by his support of such men as the late Senator McCarthy, Gerald L.K. Smith, and Rev. Billy James Hargis. Incidentally, the author, a journalist of considerable experience himself, has given us a colorful account of the vicissitudes of American newspaper policy. The portrait of Westbrook Pegler is one which all but his most ardent supporters or detractors should find satisfactory; and surely this is no mean achievement in view of the fact that, as Time magazine remarked recently, ""No columnist in American history has heaped so much abuse on so many people over so long a period.